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By Steve Huff in homicide, missing persons
Thursday, Jan. 1 2009 @ 9:23PM

*** See update at bottom of post ***

heatwole2.jpgThree people are dead and North Carolina authorities have issued an Amber Alert for two missing children. A 911 call came into Buncombe County Sheriff's Deputies today from a home on Old Highway 19-23 near Asheville, NC. When the authorities arrived they found two dead bodies inside the home and a third dead body in another residence nearby. The names of two victims are being withheld, the third victim is the missing childrens' mother, Angela Heatwole. The missing kids are Hayes Heatwole, age 6, and Haley Heatwole, age 10. Hayes is a blue-eyed boy with long blond hair and glasses. Haley has brown hair and hazel eyes. Police think the children are with Richard Heatwole. They may be in a white Toyota Tundra with North Carolina plates. Richard Heatwole may be armed and dangerous. At one time Richard Heatwole was the owner of Big D's Golf Range & Pro Shop on Old 19-23 there in Candler, but more recently he'd been advertising Big D's Handyman Service.

Heatwole has a record in Florida for possession of a controlled substance and marijuana possession. For a man nicknamed "Big D" he isn't very large -- his page with Florida corrections lists Heatwole as 5'7" and 155 lbs.

I have a sneaking suspicion this story may be a little too close in some respects to the terrible saga behind Bruce Pardo's Santa-suited Christmas Eve massacre, when all is said and done. [FoxCarolina.com]

UPDATE, 1/02/09

Richard Heatwole has committed suicide and Haley and Hayes Heatwole are safe.Heatwole killed himself after a police standoff at the residence of a relative in Taylorsville, NC.