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FBI, State Join Search For Killers Of Gainesville Campers

POSTED: Monday, January 9, 2006

The FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement have joined the sheriff's offices from Marion and Alachua counties in trying to find who killed two Sante Fe College students shot to death at their camp site in the Ocala National Forest.

Santa Fe campers deadFamily members found the bodies of Amber Peck and John Parker on Saturday near Hidden Pond, just off the Florida Trial, a few miles from where they had parked their car.

The two 26-year-old Gainesville students were shot to death, and authorities said their deaths were not the result of a murder-suicide.

Sheriff's deputies investigating in Marion and Alachua counties would not speculate on whether the killer was a random passer-by or someone they knew.

On Tuesday, Peck had told her family that she and Parker were going camping and would return the next day. When they did not return Wednesday as planned, Peck's father and brother-in-law went searching for them.

Santa Fe students
News of the killings hit students on the Gainesville campus hard.
VIDEO
Deaths Disturb Students Starting Classes In Gainesville
"What we really need to do is fill in the timeline -- the time frame from when they actually left Gainesville, of course, to when their bodies were found in the Ocala National Forest," Alachua County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Keith Saulk said. "So anybody, any relatives, friends, family members, obviously, that can help us do that, we're following up on those leads."

Autopsies were expected to be completed Monday.

Monday was the first day of classes for 2006 on the Santa Fe campus. School officials offered students information and counseling sessions for anybody who wanted to talk.

"It's something that affects students personally, because it's two of their own," college spokesman Larry Keen told Channel 4's Jim Piggott.

Authorities are urging anyone with information about the slayings to call the Marion County Sheriff's Office at (352) 732-9111. A $5,000 reward is offered for information about the slayings.

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