Teen's Charged in Alba Texas Triple Murder

A mother and two children were killed in a pre-dawn attack at their remote East Texas ranch, which burned to the ground, and three high school students who knew the family will be among those charged with murder, authorities said Saturday.
The father was in critical condition with a gunshot wound, Rains County Sheriff David Traylor said at a news conference.

Three high school students, including one juvenile, and an adult were arrested and booked into the Rains County jail. The two males and two females will be charged with three counts each of capital murder, Traylor said.

The family had a teenage daughter, but Traylor did not provide information on her whereabouts. The dead were a 39-year-old woman and two boys, ages 8 and 13, Traylor said.

"It's the scariest thing," Traylor said. "You don't know what to make. I guess you imagine the worst and hope for the best."

The sheriff said authorities could not determine whether gunshots or the fire caused the deaths, saying, "The bodies have been so badly burned."

Autopsies have been ordered.

The house sat on at least 20 acres of pine-canopied, remote land on a gravel road with just two other homes. Alba is about 60 miles northeast of Dallas.
Carl Johnson, a family friend, said he drove to the secluded road early Saturday after being told of the fire. He said the father dragged his wounded body about 150 yards to a neighbor's house, leaving a bloody trail.

Johnson described the family as musicians, the boys playing guitars and harmonica and the mother piano at church. He said he'd often tell the teenage daughter that he wanted her to sing at his funeral.

"I just thought the whole world of the family," said Johnson, 75. "They were good Christian people. (The father) was like a son of my own."

Harold Read, who lives about a mile away, said he was awakened by what he thought was thunder around 4 a.m., the time when authorities were first called to the house.

"All you read about out here are ticky-tacky crimes in the local paper," said Read, 67. "I never lock my doors. This is a quiet place."

By late Saturday, firefighters sifted through the ash and singed metal that was all that remained from the house. A wooden sign tacked to a tree in the family's dirt driveway read "Joshua 24:15," and a burned van was parked near where the home once stood.