Byrd and Melanie Billings couple with 16 children found dead in their Florida home (Red van photo)

July 10, 9:32 PMNewark Reality TV ExaminerRobyn Gormish

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The Billing's Family       Photo: Pensacola News Journal

The mother-in-law of one of the grown children, Nancy Markham, stated to CBS news, Byrd and Melanie Billings were found in the bedroom of their home in Beulah, just west of Pensacola near the Alabama border.

Investigators searched today for three men wanted for questioning about the Thursday night home-invasion deaths of the mother and father of 16 children.

The Escambia County Sheriff's Office said the men were driving a red full-size van when they were seen leaving the home of Byrd and Melanie Billings after the Escambia County couple were found shot to death in the bedroom of their home in Beulah, just west of Pensacola near the Alabama border.
 

Sergeant Ted Roy, a sheriff's office spokesman, said the men may have been involved in the slayings.

The couple were the parents of 16 children 12 of which they had adopted. According to reports only eight children were present at the home when the shooting occurred. None of the children have been reported to be harmed.

Roy said the children living in the home were found safe after the attack. Deputies had to wake some of the children who ranged in age from infants to 11 years old.
 

The couple owned several local businesses and were known for their generosity taking in children with disabilities and from troubled backgrounds.

When the couple married 18 years ago and each had two children from previous marriages, according to TLC's 2005 story about the family. The Billings then began adopting children with developmental disabilities and other problems. The family lived in a nine-bedroom rural home.

In the 2005 reality TV story about the family on TLC, 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 stated, "I just wanted to give them a better life."

The family's nine-bedroom home had a complete alarm system with sensors and cameras in every room. Roy stated authorities were reviewing video footage from the cameras.

Karla Arnold, 47, a clerk who works at the nearby Swifty Serve convenience store, said the Billings had been coming in the store for years.

“They were very good people,” she said. “The kids would be with them sometimes. Some had Down Syndrome and were in wheelchairs. They were real good people.”

"They were very good people. I don't know what's going to happen to those children," Nancy Markham, the mother-in-law of one of the couple's grown children, told the Pensacola News Journal.

Sources: CBS News, TLC, Pensacola News Journal

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