6 Murdered in Tennessee-Alabama
FAYETTEVILLE, Tenn. – Six Slain Victims 30 Miles Apart
The six victims of what police say is "One of the worst crimes" their county has ever seen, are all within a 30 mile radius.
Some are even related to each other. Authorities have not released the ages of the victims.
A suspect who was found sitting on a front porch of one of the homes where some of the bodies ...
...discovered just across the Tennessee border in Huntsville, Alabama.
Five of the the victims include members of the same family, were all found dead in 2 homes in a rural area just outside of Fayetteville, Tenn.
A Bureau of Investigation spokesperson, Kristin Helm said in an email, that a suspect named Jacob Shaffer (30 years old), of Huntsville, Ala. isnow in custody.
No charges have yet been filed. Helm says, he was found on the porch of one of the homes in Fayettevilled, Tenn. just sitting there, by sheriff's deputies.
Lincoln County Sheriff Murray Blackwelder said at a news conference that his department is investigating three crime scenes, though he did not elaborate. He did not release the victims' names and would not confirm the causes of death. He also did not release a motive in what he called "horrendous" killings and "one of the worst crimes Lincoln County has seen."
Helm said some of the Tennessee victims were related and were killed Friday night or early Saturday. Huntsville police Sgt. Mickey Allen, who works for the city's major crimes unit, told TV station WAFF that based on the suspect's information, police found a body at Hall Cultured Marble Granite late Saturday morning. Authorities have not said how the slayings in the two communities are linked.
Karon Weatherman, who lives about a half-mile away from the Tennessee homes, said she saw children as young as 4 and 5 running back and forth between the houses across the road from each other.
One of the Tennessee homes was once a skating rink that was converted into a duplex, said Weatherman. She did not know the family but said they moved in earlier this year in the area of mostly rental houses.
"I wouldn't expect nothing like this to happen," she said.
All phone numbers listed in Huntsville under Jacob Shaffer's name had been disconnected.
Fayetteville is a town of 7,000 people about 90 miles south of Nashville near the Tennessee-Alabama border. Huntsville, about 30 miles south, is the largest city in northern Alabama with more than 170,000 people.
