A woman said on Tuesday that her daughter and three grandchildren were among the seven people found dead at a rural Oklahoma property during a search for two missing teenagers and a convicted sex offender.
Janette Mayo, 59, of Westville, Oklahoma, said the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office notified her late on Monday that the other four victims were her daughter, Holly Guess, 35, and her grandchildren, Rylee Allen, 17, Michael Mayo, 15, and Tiffany Guess, 13.
The two bodies police were initially looking for are believed to be Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 16, who were found when officers searched the property where sex offender Jesse McFadden lived, Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice said, according to KOTV in Tulsa.
“We are no longer looking,” Mr Rice said. “We believe to have found everything that we were seeking this morning. Our hearts go out to the families and friends, schoolmates and everyone else.”
While Mr Rice declined to provide details of how they died, the tragedy comes in a year marked by an increase in mass killings in the US.
Ms Mayo said the sheriff’s office told her that her daughter and grandchildren were all found shot dead in various locations on McFadden’s property.
The bodies were found on Monday during a search near Henryetta, a town of about 6,000 located about 145km east of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokesman Gerald Davidson said.
A missing endangered person advisory had been issued earlier in the day for the two teenagers before it was cancelled on Monday afternoon by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
'She's gone'
Brittany had gone to spend the weekend with the McFadden family, KOTV said, quoting her father, Nathan Brewer. She was to have returned home on Sunday night.
“Brittany was an outgoing person,” Mr Brewer said.
“She was actually selected to be Miss Henryetta coming up in July for the National Miss Pageant in Tulsa, and now she ain't gonna make it because she's dead. She's gone.”
McFadden, 39, had been scheduled to begin a trial on Monday for using a mobile phone while in prison to send salacious messages to a teenage girl, KTOV said.
The Oklahoma Sex Offender registry shows Jesse Lee McFadden, 39, lived at the address where the bodies were found. It shows that he was convicted of first degree rape in Oklahoma in 2003.
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokesman Gerald Davidson said the violent crime task force in the Okmulgee County District Attorney's office was told on Monday that the two girls might be in the presence of someone at the property on Holly Road on the outskirts of Henryetta.
Sheriff's deputies went to the property twice. It was on the second visit that they found evidence that led them to the bodies, Mr Davidson said.
Henryetta Public Schools posted on Facebook and its website that it was grieving over the loss of several of its students.
“Our hearts are hurting, and we have considered what would be best for our students in the coming days,” it said.
Officials said school would be in session, and mental health professionals and clergy would be on hand to help counsel students.
But they said they would understand if families wanted to keep their children at home.
Agencies contributed to this report
