Seven bodies were found on Monday in the quiet town of Henryetta, Oklahoma, as authorities were searching for two missing teenage girls believed to be in the company of a convicted rapist.
The body of 39-year-old convicted rapist Jesse McFadden was found among the dead, Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice told reporters during a press conference held the following day, May 2, per Fox 4 KDFW.
McFadden had served 17 years in prison for first degree rape and was released in October 2020.
Two of the victims discovered Monday were 14-year-old Ivy Webster and 16-year-old Brittany Brewer, who had been reported missing and in the company of McFadden.
Among the dead were also McFadden’s wife, 35-year-old Holly Guess, as well as her children, 17-year-old Rylee Elizabeth Allen, 15-year-old Michael James Mayo, and 13-year-old Tiffany Dore Guess.
While the authorities have not released any details surrounding their deaths, Holly Guess’ mother, Janette Mayo, told the Associated Press that the victims had been shot to death.
Similarly, Ivy Webster’s father, Justin Webster, said that he had been told by the sheriff’s office that the victims had been gunned down, with some of the bodies lined up and others found across the rural property owned by McFadden, per the Associated Press.
Both Ivy Webster and Brittany Brewer had been spending the weekend with McFadden and Guess, as they were friends with Guess’ two daughters.
Justin Webster told the Associated Press that he filed a police report on May 1 when Ivy didn’t return home.
The same day that the teenage girls were reported missing and the bodies were discovered, McFadden was due in court.
He was about to be put on trial for charges of soliciting sexual conduct with a minor and possession of child pornography.
The investigation is still ongoing and the state medical examiner has not yet confirmed the identities of the victims nor the causes of death.
In the meantime, the authorities have remained vague about certain details, such as what led them to McFadden’s property, how long the victims had been dead, and whether it is indeed a case of murder-suicide.
“We’ve had our share of troubles and woes, but this one is pretty bad,” Sheriff Rice told reporters, per Fox 4.
Henryetta is located roughly 90 miles east of Oklahoma City. Last October in nearby Okmulgee, four men were found dead and dismembered in the Deep Fork River.
Joseph Kennedy, a 67-year-old scrapyard owner on parole for an assault and battery conviction, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder, per The New York Times.
In Dallas, the murder rate continues to outpace that logged last year, as The Dallas Express recently reported.
A total of 96 murders have been reported in Dallas since the start of the year, as of May 3, with nine of these characterized as “family violence crimes” by the City’s crime analytics dashboard. This marks a more than 23% spike in murders compared to the same time last year.
Just this past weekend, a man was shot to death in Tennell Atkins’ District 8 on the morning of April 29 in the 200 block of S. Jim Miller Road, per The Dallas Express. Later that same evening, another man was fatally shot in Casey Thomas II’s District 3 in the 1200 block of Red Bird Lane.