Couple with large adoptive family killed

PENSACOLA, Fla., July 10 (UPI) -- Three men in an old 15-passenger van were seen in the house where a Florida couple was shot and killed, police said Friday.

The bodies of Byrd and Melanie Billings were discovered in their bedroom around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, the Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal reported. At a news conference Friday, Escambia County Sheriff Dave Morgan released a photograph from a surveillance camera showing the van, a late 1970s or early 1980s model, near the victims' house in Beulah.

Eight of the couple's adopted children, ranging in age from 8 to 14, were in the house at the time, investigators said. One of the children alerted a woman who lived on the property and she called 911.

The Billings, who owned several Pensacola-area businesses, including a used car dealership, had 16 children, 12 of them adopted. They lived in a large nine-bedroom house at the end of a long driveway in Beulah.

Investigators described the crime as a home invasion, saying the men apparently got into the house through several entrances.