CASS COUNTY, Texas — Three missing girls were found dead early Saturday morning near their home in northeast Texas.
Cass County Sheriff Larry Rowe told the Texarkana Gazette that investigators were notified Friday night about the disappearance of 5-year-old Temari Oliver, 8-year-old Amiyah Hughes, and 9-year-old Zi'Ariel Oliver. The three sisters had reportedly last been seen at their house on State Highway 77 near the small city of Atlanta, Texas.
Nobody was sure where they went.
Authorities arrived at the property around 9:30 p.m. Friday and began a search of the area, according to CBS affiliate WKRG.
Searchers would later find a pair of shoes at the edge of a private pond on neighboring land, roughly 200 yards from where the children lived, the daily newspaper reported.
There were footprints, too, near the pond. And, WKRG says the mother of the girls confirmed to investigators that the shoes belonged to one of the three children.
Dive teams entered the water and reportedly recovered the three girls' bodies around 3 a.m. Saturday.
It was not immediately clear, WKRG says, whether the children often went to the private pond or if they knew how to swim. Those questions will be part of the investigation.
The Texas Rangers and Texas Department of Public Safety will handle the case, the CBS station reported. An autopsy will determine the causes of death.
As of Saturday night, the Texarkana Gazette noted that detectives had not reached any conclusions about how the children may have died.
"Nobody has been accused of anything," Rowe told the newspaper.
