Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Police in North Carolina opened a homicide investigation after five people were found shot to death in a home overnight Thursday.
Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton said authorities received a call from a person who knew the homeowners and arrived shortly after midnight to find four men and a woman dead in the home.
The victims ranged in age from 30s to 80s.
Police Captain Eric Pope said they also were of "various racial and ethnic backgrounds -- White, Black and Hispanic."
It was not immediately clear how the victims were connected.
The caller said he had spoken to one of the victims at around 11 p.m. and stopped by the residence at around 11:41 p.m. where they discovered the bodies before calling 911.
"This is not normal for our community, it's not normal for any community, and it should shock the conscious and we hope that somebody already knows something and will at least call us and give us the information that we need so that we can bring these person or persons to justice,"Pope said.
Police said the killings are not connected to two separate shootings that took place in Sampson County over the course of the previous 24 hours.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation was reportedly assisting with the investigation.
