Grandson Killed Family With 'Force'

Six family members who were beaten to death over the weekend were attacked with so much force that each died almost instantly, a county coroner said Friday.

Jesse Dee Wise, the grandson of the oldest victim, admitted killing his relatives and dumping their bodies in the basement of the family home, police said. He was charged Thursday with six counts of criminal homicide.

Wise confessed to strangling three of the victims and bludgeoning three others, according to court documents, although Lancaster County Coroner Dr. G. Gary Kirchner said Friday "there was nobody that we could say definitely was strangled."

"They were hit with a blunt instrument with incredible force," Kirchner said, and the trauma resulted in "pretty much instant death."

"I don't think anybody suffered," Kirchner said.

The autopsy listed the cause of death for all six as blunt force trauma.

The dead were identified as Jesse Dee Wise's grandmother, Emily Wise; two relatives believed to be his aunts, Wanda Wise, 45, and Agnes Arlene Wise, 43; two of Emily Wise's grandchildren, Skyler Wise, 19; Chance Wise, 5; and 17-year-old relative Jessie James Wise, authorities said.

Lancaster County District Attorney Don Totaro said he believed Wise's parents were deceased and the man was living with his extended family. The family had moved to the in the large, white green-shuttered home in October from a nearby town.

The bodies were found after Emily Wise's husband called from New York on Wednesday asking a friend to check on his family in the three-story house in Leola, a small village in Lancaster County's rural Amish country. Wise's husband worked in New York, Totaro said.