Sheriff: Tips coming in on Ill. family slaying

LINCOLN -- Authorities would not say Friday if they were any closer to solving the slayings of five members of a central Illinois family, but a homicide expert said it's unlikely only one person was responsible for the deaths.

Logan County Sheriff Steven Nichols said at a news conference that a "substantial" amount of evidence taken from the victims' home -- including photographs, blood samples, fingerprints and DNA -- will take time to analyze.

He has declined to say whether authorities are looking for more than one suspect in the deaths of Raymond "Rick" and Ruth Gee and three of their children, 16-year-old Justina Constant, Dillen Constant, 14, and Austin Gee, 11, which authorities have attributed to "blunt force trauma."

But a former Los Angeles homicide detective said it's improbable one person would be capable of inflicting deadly force on all five victims.

"I would guarantee, especially with the age of these individuals, that there was probably more than one person involved in this beating," said Tim Williams, who spent more than 25 years in the LAPD's robbery and homicide division. "These kids will fight."

Nichols has not said whether the victims were beaten and has revealed very little about the case since the bodies were discovered Monday afternoon in tiny Beason. Seized evidence -- crime-scene combing of the ranch-style home was concluded Wednesday -- includes more than 100 items that require analysis by state crime investigators, he said.

"As we receive the results from the crime lab, new leads will be generated," he added.

Authorities found the Gees' 3-year-old daughter alive but with blunt force trauma injuries that left her in critical condition. She was taken to a Peoria hospital, where Nichols has said she was under police guard.

Nichols said detectives are following up on about 250 tips that have come from people throughout central Illinois and around the United States. He repeated a plea for information about an unusual truck spotted in Beason on Sunday night or early Monday.

The pickup, possibly a small Ford or Chevrolet, has chrome exhaust pipes that rise vertically from behind the back wheels in the bed of the truck.

A family friend said earlier this week that she would have expected the Gees' large dog, Baby, to have alerted the family to a break-in.

But Nichols said Friday that the dog, which has since been taken to a shelter, was in the backyard when police arrived.

"And I'll be quite honest with you, the whole time I was there, I never heard the dog bark once," he said.

The sheriff has not said whether authorities have found any weapons and he has said he doesn't know the time of death. But the town's postmaster said the children never showed up Monday morning at the spot where they normally caught the bus to school.