Man, 21, charged with the murders of six relatives

A 21-YEAR-OLD man was charged yesterday with the gruesome killing of six relatives, whose bodies were found wrapped in sheets and blankets in the basement of his grandmother’s home in a tiny Pennsylvania town.

Dark marks that appeared to be blood stained the walls and ceiling of two bedrooms, and bone fragments, hair and a hammer were discovered upstairs, authorities said.

Jesse Dee Wise, whose grandparents owned the home, was arrested yesterday and charged with six counts of homicide, police said.

Lancaster County District Attorney Don Totaro declined to comment about a possible motive or say if Wise had given a statement.

The victims were killed last weekend and apparently died of multiple traumatic injuries, Mr Totaro said. He declined to say how they were killed, but police have said at least one victim had an obvious head wound.

Wise’s 64-year-old grandmother, Emily Wise; two relatives believed to be his aunts; two of Emily Wise’s grandchildren, aged five and 19; and a 17-year-old relative were identified as the dead, said East Lampeter Township police Chief John Bowman.

The bodies were discovered in the three-storey house in Leola, a small village in Lancaster County’s rural Amish country, after Emily Wise’s husband called from New York asking a friend to check on his family. Jessie L Wise, aged 60, was worried because he hadn’t heard from his wife since Friday, authorities said. The friend, John Sean Mr Adams, aged 24, met the first officer at the house.

When they went inside, Adams stopped halfway down the basement steps and yelled: “They’re all dead! All six of them are dead,” the affidavit stated.

Police found several bodies wrapped in sheets and blankets and piled on the basement floor, one of them with obvious head wounds, according to a search warrant affidavit. One body was at the bottom of the steps wrapped in a comforter secured with a phone cord. Police had received three calls about the house on Main Street, the first around 1.30pm Wednesday. The person called back a few minutes later to cancel the request for help, then called again at 2.05pm, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit does not identify the caller. It said Mr Adams met East Lampeter Township police Officer Samuel Sanger at the home.