Daughter of Florida Couple Byrd and Melanie Billings Will Care for 13 Siblings
1. Daughter of Florida Couple Byrd and Melanie Billings Will
Care for 13 Siblings
The adult daughter of Byrd and Melanie
Billings said she will move to the home
where her parents were brutally
murdered July 9 to take care of her 13
younger siblings, according to reports in
the Pensacola News Journal.
Ashley Markham, 26, said that it was her
mother's wish for her to care of the
children. Markham also defended her
parents whose lives and histories had
come under national media attention
following the murders.
"My dad is a very smart businessman. My
dad worked from 6 in the morning to 8 at
night Monday through Saturday,"
Markham said.
Byrd and Melanie Billings were killed in
their Florida home on July 9, apparently for their safe, which contained only children's medication,
family documents and some jewelry.
Byrd Billings was a 66-year-old entrepreneur who dabbled in used cars, boats and the adult industry
before finally hitting it big. Melanie Billings was a 43-year-old country music lover who fed the
homeless and was devoted to her MySpace page.
Together, they adopted 13 children with autism, Down syndrome and other developmental
disabilities, and lived in a sprawling home west of Pensacola.
On Saturday, the Billings children returned to the family home for the first time since the murders.
Markham said "there were 20 family friends" at the house cleaning, which now has a security gate,
new locks, new doors and new carpeting.
Police believe the murders were part of an elaborate robbery scheme to obtain the Billings' family
safe, which contained only children's medication, family documents and some jewelry.
In a news conference late Friday, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan confirmed the contents of
the safe and said that police found the microwave oven-size vault buried in the backyard of a home
owned by wealthy Florida real estate Pamela Wiggins. The burial location of the safe was concealed
by some bricks. Morgan declined to put a value in the safe's contents.
2. Police have repeatedly said that robbery was the prime motive for the deadly crime that was
executed with "military precision."
In recent weeks, details have emerged about the lives of the Billings, who were buried Friday.
Interviews and court records obtained by The Associated Press also portray Byrd Billings as a former
strip club owner-turned-used car dealer who was once sentenced to probation for an adoption scam.
He frequently crossed paths with "shady characters," according to an ex-wife, but police have
offered no evidence linking his past to the murders of Billings and his wife.
Known around Pensacola as "Bud," Byrd Billings spent his early years in Mississippi and Tennessee.
He owned a car dealership in Mississippi in the 1980s, and incorporated a boat company in 1976.
The corporation was dissolved in the 1980s. In divorce records from the dissolution of his second
marriage, in 1993, Billings reported having a net worth of just $1,400, including total cash assets of
$100 and a net monthly income of $1,190. Four months after the divorce, Melanie became his third
wife.
At the time of their death, they were living in a $700,000 home -- opulent by Pensacola standards --
and associates say they employed several people to care for the children. But how they got there
from such a humble beginning to their marriage is unclear, the AP reported.
