Photo: Sheriff David Morgan consoles victim’s daughter, Ashley Markham, AP Photo
By: Ben Montgomery
Source: tampabay.com
Sheriff David Morgan said that the seven suspects who brutally slayed Byrd and Melanie Billings at their home in Beulah, trained and plotted the specifics of their night-time assault for over one month. That’s why the murderers were in and out in four minutes, wearing “ninja garb” and assaulting the home with “military precision, the sheriff said.
The intruders left with a safe and several other items, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said, and robbery appears to have been the motive. The Billings were well-off, involved in pawnshops and auto sales companies. They lived in a nine-bedroom home with a swimming pool, surrounded by trees and a stockade fence. Surveillance cameras monitored the property and each of the bedrooms and captured the crime that has brought national media attention to this town.
Now police tape blocks the entrance to the property. Along the fence is an impromptu memorial to the couple. Grocery store flowers and votive candles and a note: “Thank you Bud and Mel for your kindness and love. When we were hitting the bottom of our life you helped raise up our family.”
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