Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Eight family members in Georgia trailer park killed

UNITED STATES - Eight people are dead in a Georgia trailer park and two more critically injured in what is being called a mass shooting.

In custody is Guy Heinze Jr. who has been charged with possession of marijuana and the drug Darvocet, tampering with evidence and obstruction of an officer. He has NOT been charged with the gruesome murders however although he remains a suspect.

Police received a 911 call shortly after 8:00 am (1200 GMT) Saturday "of multiple deceased persons found in a mobile home in the New Hope mobile park." Officers arriving on the scene found seven dead people and two more who were critically injured in the trailer park in Brunswick, Georgia, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) south of Savannah.

Police are currently withholding motive, who did the shooting and what exactly happened as more details become clear. Today police released the 911 tape:

"My whole family is dead," said Guy Heinze Jr., 22, when he called in the 911 call. Barely coherent, he said he had arrived at the mobile home Saturday morning to find family members dead and bleeding. "My whole family is dead ... it looks like they've been beaten to death, but I don't know, man."

He then says the ambulance "better hurry," because his cousin, Michael Toler, a 19 year-old man with Down syndrome, was alive, but "that his face is smashed in." Michael later died from his wounds.

Later neighbour Orlinski takes the phone and tells the dispatcher: "I know there's a little baby. ... Shoot, there's a little baby. I don't know if the baby was in there or not."

Heinze apparently moved several of the bodies, trying to find someone who was still alive.

One police source says it may have been a mass murder-suicide, but they won't know until all the facts have been confirmed.

An official close to the investigation confirms some of the victims were shot. The quiet community has a low crime rate compared to other parts of Georgia. The killing at the New Hope trailer park, a 250-acre former plantation of pine trees and pecan groves, is the latest in a spate of mass killings in the United States.

In August, a Pennsylvania man embittered by what he described as constant rejection by women, walked into a women's health club and opened fire on a dance class, killing three women before turning the gun on himself in Greenhill, Alabama.