parents-16-kids-deadESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. – Police are investigating the deaths of parents of 16 kinds. The incident had occurred few hours ago in Florida. The couple were found shot in the bedroom in Beulah, Fla., just west of Pensacola, Fla., near the Alabama border. The police said that it is a home invasion.

The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said that they got a call around 8 p.m on Thursday to a home in the 9700 block of Mobile Highway. When they arrived, deputies say they found a man and woman dead in the bedroom of their home in the Beulah community. They died because of the gun shot.

Police identified that the victims are Byrd and Melanie Billings. Both were couples with 16 children. 12 of them are adopted children. Around their neighborhood, they were known for helping children with disabilities and troubled backgrounds.

The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office also said that the men were driving a red full-size van when they were seen leaving the home of Byrd and Melanie Billings
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Sgt. Ted Roy, a sheriff’s office spokesman, said the men may have been involved in the slayings.

Roy said that the children were at home at the time of the shooting, but they were found safe after the attack. The Escambia County Sheriff’s Deputies said that he had to wake some of the children whose age range was from infants to 11 years old.

Report says that the couple owned several local businesses.

It had been said that investigators were meeting Friday morning and had no new information about the case.

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“We don’t know who did this,” they said.

According to a 2005 story about the family from the News Journal when the couple married 18 years ago each had two children from previous marriages. The Billings then began adopting children with developmental disabilities and other problems. The family lived in a nine-bedroom rural home.

In the 2005 story the couple said they wanted to share their wealth with children in need, but that they did not imagine their family would grow so large.

“It just happened,” Melanie Byrd told. “I just wanted to give them a better life.”

The police works hard to investigate this situation. They also want to question three men in a red van about the shooting.