Man Sought In Idaho Amber Alert
Police have been combing the area around a modest home just outside Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, since a neighbor reported it was suspiciously quiet there Monday night.
"I had a real bad feeling," says Bob Hollingsworth, "because, always, some kid or the dog or somethin' comes out of there, you know."
When police went in, reports CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes on The Early Show, they found a horrific crime scene: the bodies of 40-year-old Brenda Groene, her 13-year-old son, Slade, and 37-year-old Mark McKenzie, of Coeur d'Alene.
Missing are Groene's nine-year-old son, Dylan Groene and eight-year-old daughter, Shasta Groene.
An Amber Alert has been issued for Dylan and Shasta.
"We know (McKenzie isn't) the biological father," says Capt. Ben Wolfinger of the Kootenai County, Idaho Sheriff's Dept. "We spoke to the biological father."
The biological father, who's the dead woman's ex-husband, has been ruled out as a suspect, according to Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson , who also says there's no evidence the crime is a murder-suicide.
Late Tuesday night, authorities named someone they're calling "a person of interest," 33-year-old Robert Roy Lutner, of Hayden, Idaho, who was known to have been at the Groene home Sunday evening. He's thought to be driving a 1975 silver Ford pickup truck, or a 1990 white Toyota pickup.
"His vehicle was seen at the residence during the time we suspect the murders took place," Sheriff Watson told The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler Wednesday. "We need to talk to him. We need to find him.
"We understand he is an acquaintance of the family and he's visited the residence before.
"We don't have any firm evidence, but we believe (Shasta and Dillon) were
there (when the murders occurred)," Watson said, adding authorities have found no sign of them in the vicinity of the house.
Cadaver-sniffing dogs are working the heavily wooded area, which is close to Lake Coeur d'Alene.
Calling the slayings "a very brutal triple murder," Watson said the manner of the deaths is being withheld until autopsies are completed, probably Wednesday.
Brenda Groene's older son, Jesse, who is jail on unrelated burglary charges, says he can't believe he lost almost his entire family. He'd spoken to his mother less than a week ago: "Whoever did this is just straight twisted; something's wrong with them."
"This is a small community, and we haven't experienced this type of thing before," Watson told Syler. "So there's a lot of shock and a lot of concern.
"We're counting on somebody out there knowing something about the family that will help lead us to these children," Watson says.
"I love those little kids, they were great little kids," Hollingsworth says, "always smiling and always waving at me when I came."
Local officials have called in crime scene help from the state and the FBI.
