Police Give First Major Update on 7 Found Dead in Oklahoma

Police on Wednesday identified the seven people found dead at the home of an Oklahoma sex offender as missing teens Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 15; their friend Tiffany Guess, 13; her siblings Michael Mayo, 15, and Rylee Allen, 17; and the siblings' mom, Holly Guess, 35. The final body belonged to the sex offender, Jesse McFadden, 39, who authorities say murdered the other six before taking his own life, NBC News reports. Prior to the police confirmation, those are the identities that had been widely reported by family members to have been the victims. Ivy and Brittany were having a sleepover with Tiffany when the massacre took place; McFadden was married to her mother, the AP reports.

Each victim had been shot in the head one to three times with a 9mm pistol, police said. The bodies appeared to have been moved from where the killings took place and "staged," police said. The bodies of Ivy, Brittany, and Rylee were found about a quarter-mile from the home on the property in a rural area, about 100 to 150 yards from each other. The other four bodies were found in a heavily wooded part of the property. A motive remains unclear: "Normal people can’t understand why. People that perpetrate crimes like this are evil," the police chief says. McFadden faced a court appearance on charges of soliciting sexual conduct with a minor, and he had reportedly texted the alleged victim in that case in the hours before the murder-suicide, "This is all on you."

Some are questioning why McFadden was released three years early from serving a 20-year sentence for raping a 17-year-old, in part due to good behavior, even though he faced new charges over allegations that he used a contraband cell phone while in prison to trade nude photos with a 16-year-old. He ultimately served 16 years, 9 months of the rape sentence and was released in 2020, despite the fact that the new felony charges he faced upon his release could have put him back behind bars for many more years. Authorities have not commented on why he was released. "Oklahoma failed to protect families. And because of that my children—my daughter and my grandchildren—are all gone,” Holly Guess' mother says. (More Oklahoma stories.)