Background: The home on Auble Moody Road in Wilmer, Alabama (WALA/YouTube). Insets (from left to right): Lisa Ferguson, Keziah Luker, and Thomas Cordell (Family/WALA).
Authorities in Alabama are on the hunt for a suspect following the tragic deaths of a woman and her two teenage children, who were found tied up and killed in their home.
During a press briefing, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch identified the victims as 46-year-old Lisa Ferguson, her 17-year-old daughter Keziah Luker, and 12-year-old son Thomas Cordell. Notably, Luker was seven to eight months pregnant at the time of her death.
The incident occurred late Sunday night into early Monday morning at their residence on Auble Moody Road in Wilmer, Alabama, a rural area roughly 25 miles northwest of Mobile, near the Mississippi state line.
According to Sheriff Burch, the father of Luker’s unborn child became concerned when he noticed her phone was “activated in the middle of the night.” This led to a family member visiting the home, where they uncovered the horrifying scene.
Sheriff Burch described the discovery as “brutal,” revealing that all three victims had their hands bound with zip ties or flex cuffs. Ferguson had been stabbed, Luker was shot, and Cordell’s throat was slashed, along with his mother’s.
The victims were found in separate rooms throughout the house.
Officers were called at about 2:30 a.m., and they arrived and identified the three victims. The sheriff added that the home was “in disarray,” including open dresser drawers, and it appeared as if “someone was searching for something.”
The indications to law enforcement were that this was a “targeted” crime.
“They had a plan coming in to bring zip ties with them,” Burch continued. “To murder two children brutally, the 12-year-old was almost decapitated, and so it was a brutal scene, and you know, I hope and feel comfortable we’ll have this animal or animals off the streets soon.”
The sheriff said his office does “have some positive leads” in the case, and he acknowledged that it’s possible — if even likely — that there were multiple perpetrators as “it’d be hard for one individual to patrol three people at one time.”
He added that “we don’t suspect any kind of domestic, family type situation” as being responsible for the deaths. As for whether four homicide charges could be brought against the suspect or suspects due to the unborn child, Burch noted that the county’s district attorney’s office will make that decision.
