A southern Indiana man returning home from work found two people shot to death in the living room, and investigators found two other bodies inside, authorities said Sunday.

Bartholomew County Sheriff Mark Gorbett said three men were found dead in the living room Saturday evening and a woman's body was found in a bedroom of the home in Waynesville, a small unincorporated town about 50 miles south of Indianapolis.

All four were shot to death, County Coroner Larry Fisher said.

"We still have crime scene techs and criminal investigators at the scene and anticipate them being there for quite a length of time," Gorbett said. "We are following up on all leads at this point and we have no one in custody at this time."

Fisher identified the woman as homeowner Katheryn Burton, who was 53 or 54, and two of the men as Aaron Cross and Thomas Smith, both around 40 years old. He withheld the name of the other man until relatives could be notified.

Gorbett said the man who returned home from work about 10:45 p.m. Saturday told authorities he lived at the house with his mother and stepfather. Authorities did not identify him.

Gorbett, returning to the scene Sunday morning and asked by reporters if he could provide any additional information, said, "Quadruple homicide."

The Rev. Gary Carroll, pastor at Waynesville Chapel Mercy Missionary Baptist Church about a half-block from the home, told The (Columbus, Ind.) Republic that he had no indication there had been trouble at the home until he saw the flashing lights Saturday night.

Carroll, who lives next door to the church, said he knew the residents of the home only in passing — enough to wave when he saw them. He said they seemed like nice people.

Beverly Nichols told the newspaper she mowed the grass for a friend directly across the street from home on Saturday afternoon and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

In September 1998, victims of another quadruple homicide were found outside of Waynesville in shallow graves beside the East Fork of the White River. Robert J. Bassett Jr. was convicted in July 2001 of killing a young mother, her two children and a 12-year-old family friend.

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These sisters both reside in Washington, D.C., attending schools just 10 minutes away from each other. They boast the same shoe size and, uncannily – and beautifully -- resemble one another. They both have the same double-jointed thumbs and play many of the same sports.

But until January, Robin and Jordan Jeter, both 17, had never met.

"At first I didn't know I had any siblings," Robin told WUSA 9, the first to tell the remarkable story of the sisters' fortuitous meeting, earlier this year.  "As time went on, I only thought I had one sibling. I didn't know I had any more."

Born nine months before her till-now-undiscovered sister, Jordan, a junior at Wilson High School, was adopted shortly after birth. Meanwhile, Robin, a senior at nearby Friendship Collegiate, also in Washington, D.C., bounced from biological mother, to foster care, to a legal guardian.

In January, the two fatefully met at – of all things – a track meet.

"My team was like, 'She looks exactly like you,'" said Jordan. "I started, like, crying. I already knew about my adoption and I knew my last name was Jeter."

The two exchanged phone numbers, and that night talked on the phone.

"I was so anxious to know more about her. I asked her what's your mother's name on your birth certificate, what's her birthday, what does your birth certificate say at the bottom," Robin said, while Jordan, sitting beside her, laughed at her sister's recollection of the recent conversation.  

"I was like 'What is this? An interrogation?'" Jordan told the TV station with a laugh.

Now, they reportedly spend every weekend together, at a local track, or each other's houses, and plan to search for additional separated siblings.

Today – on Mother's Day – Jordan reportedly was set to meet her biological mother for the first time.

"It's been so long, I just feel like I've never be apart from her," added Jordan of her sister. "If I wouldn't have (participated in school sports), I would have never met her. I'm so thankful I joined track."

Click for more from WUSA 9.

 

Steve Warholic spends nearly his entire workday at a Nevada ammunition store scouring the Internet, and the owner puts in even more time online. Both think they need to spend more time on the web.

They're trying to find bullets for their customers at Stockpile Defense and the store's sister school, where 50,000 people are trained every year in firearms handling. Shelves that once held the most popular calibers, like .22 and .45, are bare. There are waiting lists as long as two months and students are requested to bring their own ammunition. Pre-orders are no longer allowed.

"We're buying everything we can find and we still can't bring in enough," said Warholic. "It's a constant battle."

Demand for guns and ammunition has cleaned out stores nationwide, leading to waiting lists and early morning lines outside of gun and sporting good stores for ammunition shipments. Common calibers routinely sell out within minutes of appearing on store shelves and prices have soared as much as 70 percent. 

After the Newtown elementary school massacre, gun enthusiasts, already anxious President Obama's re-election would translate into harsh controls on gun ownership, have packed stores, buying as many firearms and as much ammunition as they can find. Moves to expand background checks and limit firearm and magazine sales have added to the hysteria. Massive government purchases, including a plan by the Department of Homeland Security to buy more than 1 billion rounds of ammunition, have further stoked fears – and suspicions.

"People buy ammunition when they see it even if they don't need it," said Mike Bazinet, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Association, which represents firearms and ammunition manufacturers. "It becomes self-fulfilling over time."

Although Warholic in Nevada has ferreted out new supplies through his online work, he can barely keep up. He has 50 million rounds of ammunition on order this year, but will consider himself lucky to get 10 million. And he's one of the lucky ones: Competitors ask to purchase his supplies so they can restock their shelves.

"The running joke with our distributor is that we tell him, 'You don't need to come to work anymore. We'll take everything on your list,'" said Warholic.

The run on ammunition has also hit law enforcement agencies, notably smaller ones that don't have the funds or supplies of larger organizations. Some have stopped using bullets altogether for training. In Richmond, Calif., the 200-member force once trained on the range every month using live ammunition. They've since switched to dry fire exercises, laser guns and Airsoft pistols, which fire plastic pellets, to simulate live fire exercises -- and to save money.

"Ammunition has tripled in price over the last decade. We now have to wait a year to eight months for a shipment," said Capt. Mark Gagan, spokesman for the Richmond Police Department. 

This year, concerns over a federal government bid to purchase large amounts of ammunition sent gun enthusiasts back to the stores. The Department of Homeland Security put out bids for up to 1.2 billion rounds of ammunition, leading many gun enthusiasts, including Sen. Tom Coburn , R-Okla., to question if the agency's five-year purchase plan was fueling the national shortage. 

"These round totals are simply a ceiling," said Peter Boogard, DHS spokesman, in an email. "It does not mean that DHS will buy, or require, the full amounts of either contract." 

Over the last three fiscal years, the agency, which oversees the U.S. Secret Service, Coast Guard and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, actually bought fewer rounds of ammunition each year. The number of rounds purchased has fallen from 148.3 million in fiscal 2010 to 103.2 million rounds in 2012. The agency, which includes more than 100,000 law enforcement personnel, uses about two-thirds of the ammunition for qualifications or training purposes. 

Gun enthusiasts and elected officials also grew concerned that DHS was purchasing hollow-point bullets, which expand upon contact. Although police departments use different types of ammunition, most use hollow-point bullets because they have greater stopping power and carry less danger of passing through the target, said Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association.

Background checks for firearms soared following the shooting at the Newtown elementary school in Connecticut, as people feared some guns would be banned. The week following the Dec. 14 massacre, the FBI reported its busiest week ever for background checks since it started recording figures in 1998. Even the day of the killings, the number of background checks was among the ten highest in the last 15 years. The figures do not reflect denials or the number of firearms purchased.

The spike in demand isn't new. The sour economy has also played into personal safety fears that crime will rise. Surges in gun and ammunition purchases have been ongoing since President Obama, like many Democrats, a vocal advocate of gun control, was elected in 2008 and then re-elected last year. In an October 2009 Gallup poll, 55 percent of gun owners said they thought the president will attempt to ban gun sales. 

Despite the rush to buy ammunition and guns, household gun ownership among Americans has declined modestly since the 1970s. In 2012, 34 percent of Americans had a gun at home, down from 50 percent in 1973, the first year University of Chicago researchers started tracking gun ownership for the General Social Survey. A 2012 Gallup reported a more modest decline from 50 percent in 1968 to 43 percent last year.

These surveys, however, don't track how many firearms a gun owner has. While there is no data, retailers and ammunition dealers say ammunition and firearms sales have been to gun owners, and not to those who have never owned a firearm.

With such little supply, retailers have slapped restrictions on the number of boxes of ammunition customers can purchase. In January, Walmart limited ammunition sales to three boxes per customer, per day. Dick's Sporting Goods and Cabela's imposed a three and ten box-restriction on purchases, respectively.

At Dick's Sporting Goods in Bee Cave, Texas, a line of 10 to 15 people wait in the early morning hours outside for the store to open every Wednesday and Friday despite the three-box limit. On those days, new ammunition shipments come in and though they don't know what's coming off the truck, gun enthusiasts still show up. Any ammunition calibers that are difficult to get, like 9-mm., .22, .45 or .223, are routinely bought within minutes, leaving shelves bare. Only shotgun shells can routinely be found.

"We're getting in anything that we can and we still sell out," said Payton, a salesman at Dick's. "People panic, that's all."

The surge in demand for firearms and ammunition is also reflected in the bottom line of big retailers, like Cabela's and Walmart. At Cabela's, a national chain of sporting goods stores, first quarter profit skyrocketed 73 percent, fired by strong sales of guns and ammunition. The company's stock hit an all-time high last week after reporting its results and blowing apart analysts' expectations. 

"It's no surprise guns and ammunition were going to be strong in the first quarter," said Thomas Millner, Cabela's chief executive officer in an earnings call last Thursday. "Supply is still tight. It is still constraining ultimate demand because we simply -- in some categories, like .22-caliber ammunition, it's very, very tight."

Ammunition manufacturers are reporting record profits and sales, with increases that number in the double and sometimes triple digits. Olin, which owns Winchester, reported last week the company's first quarter earnings climbed 190 percent over the same period last year. Federal Premium Ammunition's annual earnings for ammunition last year climbed 24 percent over 2011. 

"Our sales are only limited by the amount we can produce," said Joseph Rupp, Olin chairman and chief executive officer in a conference call last Friday.

Ammunition manufacturers are struggling to make enough and have hundreds of millions of dollars in backorders. They've added hundreds of employees and equipment and increased overtime, and, in some cases, are running factories around the clock. Producers have posted notes on all their web sites assuring customers they are working as fast as they can. 

"We are producing as much as we can; much more than last year, which was a lot more than the year before. No one wants to shop more during this time than we do," a note on Hornady's site said.

Producers did not return repeated emails and calls. 

"Manufacturers are doing what they can, but it's not enough to keep up. It's a supply-and-demand issue," said Nima Samadi, a senior analyst who tracks the guns and ammunition industry at IbisWorld, a market research firm in Los Angeles.

While demand is strong, manufacturers consider it temporary and aren't planning to build new factories or make substantial changes that would cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to train people and buy new facilities. The last "surge" in demand only lasted six quarters, and this one, though manufacturers changed their expectations in the last month, now expect demand to remain strong through the end of the year. Some even wonder if it will extend into the new year and beyond.

"I think the honest answer is," said Millner, Cabela's chief executive officer. "I don't know when it's going to loosen up."

Jurors will return Monday to deliberate on the charges that Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell killed a patient and four babies that prosecutors allege were born alive.

Gosnell, 72, ran the Women's Medical Society clinic in West Philadelphia for 30 years until the FBI shut down the facility in a raid in 2010.

Gosnell faces a third-degree murder charge in the death of patient Karnamaya Mongar. He is also charged with four counts of first-degree murder for infants who were allegedly born alive and were killed by suffering severed spinal cords at Gosnell's hands. Several clinic employees have pleaded guilty to murder charges.

Prosecutors allege Gosnell's untrained, unlicensed staff gave Mongar a fatal combination of oral and intravenous drugs on Nov. 19, 2009, and failed to properly monitor her vital signs during the second-term procedure. Mongar went into cardiac arrest, lapsed into a coma and died the following day. Gosnell's attorney, Jack McMahon, has countered that Mongar, who was 19 weeks pregnant at the time, had unreported respiratory damage and died of complications.

Gosnell, who faces a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Mongar's relatives, is also charged with violating Pennsylvania's abortion law for allegedly performing abortions after 24 weeks. Some observers have said the trial highlights the difficulty to get an abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, or the end of the second trimester. A clinic near Mongar's home in Woodbridge, Va., reportedly did not perform abortions after 14 weeks.

The only co-defendant, unlicensed doctor Eileen O'Neill, is charged with racketeering and working without a license. Her lawyer says she worked under Gosnell's supervision.

Jurors have heard nearly two months of graphic testimony and will begin their 10th day of deliberations Monday.

The jury is weighing about 260 counts, including the five murder counts.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

 

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Federal officials -- for the first time -- plan to make provisions on the application for student aid for same-sex marriages, as well as unions where both parents are residing together but are not legally married.

The U.S. Department of Education reports on its website that the 2014-2015 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, will, where applicable, replace gender-specific terms like "mother" and "father" with those like "Parent 1 (father/mother/stepparent)" and "Parent 2 (father/mother/stepparent)." The FAFSA also will provide a new option for applicants to describe parents' marital status as "unmarried and both parents living together."

"All students should be able to apply for federal student aid within a system that incorporates their unique family dynamics," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a statement. "These changes will allow us to more precisely calculate federal student aid eligibility based on what a student's whole family is able to contribute and ensure taxpayer dollars are better targeted toward those students who have the most need, as well as provide an inclusive form that reflects the diversity of American families."

Department of Education officials pointed out the new FAFSA does not contradict the federal Defense of Marriage Act because the Higher Education Act (HEA), under which it operates and dispenses aid, generally includes terms like "parent" and "parents'" and not "mother," "father" or "spouse."

The FAFSA changes are potentially pivotal for some students since the information collected is used in the calculation of applicants' expected family contribution (EFC), which not only determines eligibility for federal student aid but also aid from many states, institutions and private programs.

"It is critical that both of a dependent student's parents help pay, to the extent they are able, for the educational expenses of their child" reads a DOE release. "Collecting parental information from both of a dependent student's legal parents will result in fair treatment of all families by eliminating longstanding inequities based on parents' relationship with each other rather than on their relationship with their child."

The DOE said the FAFSA alterations will change some students' eligibility, decreasing it in some instances because of the inclusion of a previously discounted parent's income in the EFC.

Also, the DOE said, "In a small number of instances, the student would be eligible for more aid because the offset for an additional person in the parents' household, a factor in calculating the EFC, will exceed the income of the second parent."

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Detective Sgt. Caleb Embree Smith of Flint died by poisoning in 1921. Wauwatosa, Wis., Officer Jennifer Sebena was shot multiple times while working last Christmas Eve, and her husband is a suspect.

Smith's case remains unsolved. Sebena's was originally viewed as domestic violence. Both have been memorialized.

Officials say most applications have been approved during more than two decades.