Parents of 16 Murdered in Cold Blood

Investigators are asking the public to be on the lookout for a red van they believe carried three men involved in the deaths of a Florida Panhandle couple who were shot in their rural home while eight of their 16 children slept.

Surveillance cameras showed the van at the home of Byrd and Melanie Billings in Beulah, a rural area west of Pensacola near the Alabama border, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said. The children were unharmed.

The sheriff's office released an enhanced, but still grainy photograph of a red, 15-passenger van dating to the late 70s or early 80s.

Morgan said investigators didn't know who killed the wealthy couple known for adopting children with developmental disabilities, many born to drug-addicted mothers.

"That only adds to the hatefulness and senselessness of this act," Morgan told reporters. "And I can tell you that our community has an outpouring as I speak for the deaths of these two individuals."

"Byrd and Melanie Billings, I believe, exemplified what is good and decent in society," he added.

Karla Arnold, who manages a convenience store near the billings' home, remarked to Pat Peterson of CBS affiliate WKRG in Pensacola, Fla. that, "They were just the type of people, they didn't lock their doors, they would help anybody."

Arnold, who used to work for the Billings, also wondered aloud, "Who could do something like that with all the children around?"

Detectives have questioned several people they consider persons of interest in the double murder, Peterson reports.

Morgan said eight of the children, ages 8 to 14, were in the home when the couple was killed Thursday evening. A woman who lives in an outlying building and helps care for the children called emergency dispatchers from the home.

Deputies had to wake some of the children after they arrived, authorities said.

Investigators interviewed the children, who are now staying with other family members, Morgan said.

The Billings had 16 children, 12 of them adopted. They married 18 years ago and each had two children from previous marriages. The couple then began adopting children with developmental disabilities and other problems.

The couple owned several local businesses, including a finance company and a used car dealership.

In a 2005 story in the Pensacola News Journal, the couple said they wanted to share their wealth with children in need, but didn't imagine their family would grow so large.

"It just happened," Melanie Byrd told the newspaper. "I just wanted to give them a better life."