Monday, July 21, 2008

Wrenching 911 tape played in sleepover slayings

(CNN) -- Oklahoma authorities on Monday urged the public to help find a pair of killers, playing a dramatic segment of a frantic 911 call from a relative who reported two girls had been found dead in a ditch.
Taylor Placker, left, and Skyla Whitaker were friends who both loved animals, their families say.

Taylor Placker, left, and Skyla Whitaker were friends who both loved animals, their families say.

The 911 tape was released six weeks after the bullet-riddled bodies of 13-year-old Taylor Placker and 11-year-old Skyla Whitaker were discovered along a remote country road in the town of Weleetka.

A breathless woman, identified only as a member of a family, can be heard on the tape. Her voice is raw with emotion.

"Somebody killed two young girls." she says. "They are both down here dead. My granddaughter and her friend. ... Help me. Please!" Video Listen to authorities play the dramatic tape »

Jessica Brown, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman, said she hoped someone would hear the tape and be inspired to identify the killers.

"We know someone knows what happened," said Brown. "Hopefully if they hear the tape they will understand what happened and come forward."

Brown said investigators have run down about 500 leads and have eliminated 100 possible suspects but have not been able to crack the case.

"Someone has to come forward," she said.

Police are asking members of the public with more information about the case to call (800) 522-8017.

The two girls had planned a sleepover at Taylor's house on June 8, the night they were killed. They left the house about 5 p.m.

Less than 30 minutes later, Taylor's grandfather discovered the bodies in a ditch on the side of a road, near a bridge that is a popular gathering spot in the area.

The killings have rattled the community of Weleetka, a town of about 1,000 residents 75 miles from Tulsa. Taylor and Skyla were the only girls in their sixth- and fifth-grade classes,

Investigators don't have any suspects or motives, but a forensic examination of the bodies indicated that two guns had been used. Police have said they are looking for two shooters.

There has been speculation the girls' slayings were "thrill killings," and police investigators have said they hope one of the shooters will turn against the other.

Several witnesses reported seeing a suspicious man on the same dirt road where the girls were shot, Brown said last month.

She said authorities believed that the man, "who didn't look like he should have been there," was on the road before the girls were shot multiple times in the head and chest and left in a ditch.

Witnesses described the man as having a black ponytail, about 6 feet tall and 35 years old. They said he was standing in front of a white single-cab pickup with chrome striping, possibly a Chevy or Ford model, with Oklahoma tags, Brown said in a press conference on June 13.

"He acted a little suspiciously but we don't know what he was doing," said Brown, stopping short of calling him a suspect. "We just want to talk to him. We think he might have seen something."

Brown said other witnesses reported hearing gunshots near the crime scene.

Taylor's uncle, Joe Mosher, described his niece as an intelligent girl who loved animals.

"She rescued turtles on the highway and wrote her name on them and turned them loose in the country," Mosher said Wednesday.

Mosher said Taylor was at the top of her class in public school after being homeschooled most of her life.

"She was very smart," said Mosher, who last saw Taylor at a family reunion two weeks before her death.

Skyla's grandmother, Claudia Farrow, described the girl as "a typical tomboy. She lived out in the country. She loved animals, loved to fish."

"Every time she`d come over here in my yard, which they just lived about a hundred yards from me, all her animals would follow her over here," Farrow told CNN last month. "She'd have five or six cats following her, her little dog and her goat. I'd get on to her daddy, I said, 'Now, don't you let that goat eat my flowers,' because she'd always eat my flowers. I will miss that. I will miss her."

No comments: