Oklahoma Investigators Release New Details in Shooting Deaths of Skyla Whitaker and Taylor Paschal-Placker

June 12, 2008

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation [OSBI] made public its suspicions that two shooters are responsible for the June 8 shooting deaths of 11-year-old Skyla Jade Whitaker and 13-year-old Taylor Dawn Paschal-Placker.

According to OSBI spokesperson Jessica Brown, ballistic tests show that two different-caliber weapons were used during the double homicide.

"The OSBI suspected that there were two weapons early on in the case, but it wanted to wait for ballistics to confirm that," Brown told Newsok.com.

Investigators have declined to release details on the types of weapons that were used.

Skyla and Taylor's bodies were discovered Sunday evening in a ditch along County Line Road in Weleetka, Oklahoma.  According to the Okfuskee County Sheriff's Office, Skyla had been spending the night at Taylor's house, and the two had decided to take a walk along the dirt road to the bridge over Bad Creek. It was something both girls had done many times before, and the bridge was only about a quarter of a mile from Taylor's house, where she lived with her grandfather and legal guardian, Peter Placker. When the girls failed to return home in a timely manner, Placker called Taylor's cell phone but got no answer. Mildly concerned by the lack of response, Placker set out on foot to locate the two girls.

"He got 200 to 300 yards north of the home and found the girls on the side of the road," OSBI special agent Ben Rosser told Adaeveningnews.com. "Both girls had been shot multiple times. Both girls were dead at the scene. At that time, he (Placker) took a cell phone from one of the girls and made a 9-1-1 telephone call to notify the authorities."

Authorities received the 9-1-1 call at approximately 5:40 p.m.

When crime scene investigators arrived at the remote location, they began the meticulous task of collecting all of the evidence at the scene. According to Rosser, investigators cataloged...

Continue Reading New Details in Shooting Deaths of Skyla Whitaker and Taylor Paschal-Placker

Skyla Whitaker and Taylor Paschal-Placker photo credits: school yearbook

Comments

[Gluttony]

This is a real shame that has happened to the children, My prayers are with the families.

[Suzan]

When I first watched this case, I figured it was done out of sport. They will most likely find a couple of older teens, or young local adults as the shooters.

Just Horrible, what is this world coming too...

[Suzan]

When I first watched this case, I figured it was done out of sport. They will most likely find a couple of older teens, or young local adults as the shooters.

Just Horrible, what is this world coming too...

[Kathryn Schutz]

This is the first I've read of the bridge. Was someone camping out under the bridge? Any evidence of that?

[David Lohr]

Hi Kathryn,

The OSBI has not made any comment on that. They are keeping many of the details under wraps.

They are supposed to have a press conference tomorrow, so we'll see what new information they have for us.

Regards,

David Lohr

[Mary Kathryn]

I believe the key to cracking this case lies in church and prayer groups mounting a prayer campaign. So I would ask them to do so. And please pray for the families who are going through a nightmare beyond telling. The killer or killers may have intended this, hoping to generate fear and terror, etc. This is demonic and not just "human".

[Fuzzy]

Any update on this case?

[Unamused]

"I believe the key to cracking this case lies in church and prayer groups mounting a prayer campaign."

You do that, if it makes you feel better. The rest of us will be watching the developments down here on Earth. I swear, it's one small step from this attitude to wasting time with 'psychic detectives' and other such self-deluded crackpots.

There's no magic, folks, though believing that demons did this has got to be more comforting than realizing that two humans who look and act exactly like the rest of us on the outside decided to murder two small girls for no comprehensible reason.

Which leads me to wonder - did they (the girls) maybe see something incriminating, like a major drug exchange, and were shot in order to ensure silence? The remote area, dirt roads and such, sounds like the sort of place a deal might take place although murdering two children is still VERY out of the ordinary even for the drug world, unless both parties were seriously out of it on something really nasty such as Ketamine. I'd lean more toward the initial speculation of local young adults, really, as this is more the sort of 'FTW' activity that occurs to lost young men like those losers at Columbine. One real bad egg can lead a weaker personality into nightmarishly awful things, see the 'Hillside Stranglers' case for another grim example.

This is one of those cases that is never going to really leave my brain, it's just so damned sad. I can't imagine how the guardian must have felt upon finding them, that's something no one should ever have to go through.