Police will today detonate more explosives in the haul found at the home of a man accused of shooting dead eight people in Virginia’s worst mass killing incident since 2007.
Security guard Christopher Speight (39) gave himself up yesterday morning after leading police on an 18-hour manhunt following the killings at a house in rural Appomattox, 100 miles south west of Richmond, where deputies found a fatally wounded man and seven bodies.
Authorities said today the victims were four adults, three teenagers and a boy aged just four.
They were identified as 16-year-old Ronald Scruggs; 15-year-old Emily Quarles; 43-year-old Karen and Jonathan Quarles; 38-year-old Dwayne and Lauralee Sipe; 15-year-old Morgan Dobyns; and four-year-old Joshua Sipe.
Police said Speight knew all the victims and had lived at the home where the massacre occurred, but they would not reveal the victims’ relationships or discuss a motive. Speight co-owned and lived in the two-storey home where some of the bodies were found.
By early today, bomb squads had detonated seven explosives and the blasting was expected to continue throughout the day.
Speight was unarmed when he surrendered. He was wearing a bulletproof vest over a black fleece jacket, camouflage trousers and mud-caked boots.
Neither the sheriff nor the state police would disclose what he said when he gave himself up.
Police were alerted to the massacre on Tuesday when they found the wounded man on the side of a road. Then sheriff’s deputies discovered seven more bodies - three inside the house and four just outside.
When officers converged on the area, the gunman fired at a state police helicopter, rupturing its fuel tank and forcing it to land. But the shots had revealed his location and more than 100 police swarmed into the woods until Speight gave up the following morning.
AP