http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,365081,00.html
Investigator in Oklahoma Double Murder: 'Shooter Wanted These Girls Dead'
Tuesday , June 10, 2008
By Sara Bonisteel
An official investigating the double murder of two young girls in Oklahoma said Tuesday the "shooter wanted these girls dead," as the relative who discovered their lifeless bodies remembered the children as inseparable best friends.
Taylor Dawn Paschal-Placker, 13, and Skyla Jade Whitaker, 11, were found shot to death in a ditch Sunday along a rural road in Weleetka, Okla., about 90 miles from Oklahoma City.
"There's obviously an issue here where the shooter wanted these girls dead and certainly carried that to its fullest extent," Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Inspector Stan Florence told FOX News.
An autopsy found they had been shot multiple times. Florence said it didn't appear that they were molested. The girls were found clothed in their T-shirts and shorts.
Florence confirmed that they have identified a person of interest in the case, stopping short of calling the individual a suspect.
We have "someone who we're interested in at this point," he said. "But we do have other leads, as well, that may lead us to other suspects."
Florence said they were acting on tips to identify the person's relationship with the grade-schoolers.
"We believe this person may have known these two girls," Florence said. "We're trying to establish the type of relationship, if there was one, where we can determine exactly what connection there was between them."
Meanwhile, the man who found the bodies said the girls were inseparable.
"When they didn't have something to do with their parents, they spent all their time talking to each other or spent the night with each other," Peter Placker, Taylor's biological grandfather, told FOXNews.com.
Placker raised Taylor as his own daughter and said she was a straight-A student who quickly made friends when the family moved to Weleetka from Oklahoma City several years ago.
"She touched everybody," Placker said. "Everybody down here loved her."
Taylor had made the quarter-mile walk down the road to a bridge daily for a year for exercise, Placker told FOXNews.com.
"She hardly ever does it at the same time everyday," he said. "Sometimes she'll do it in the morning, sometimes she'll do it in the afternoon, sometimes she'll do it about an hour or two before dark."
Placker found Taylor and Skyla dead after they didn't return home from one of those walks Sunday afternoon.
"She was my only baby," Placker said. "I've got four other ones, but that's my baby."
Investigators planned to hold a news conference at 3 p.m. ET to discuss the case. A $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
