JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A Clay County family returned home Monday to find four of their prized hunting dogs dead -- shot and buried in their back yard, according to WJXT-TV in Jacksonville.

Investigators continued to search for clues Tuesday to find out who killed the dogs while their owners were out of town for a funeral, WJXT-TV reported.

According to police, three of the Phillips' 12 dogs were shot in the head and thrown in a shallow grave, and a fourth was poisoned and left to die.

The pets' owner, Joseph Phillips was upset, angry and perplexed at why someone would kill three of his dogs and wound another so badly that it died, also.

"I can't point fingers on who, or why they did it," Phillips said. "It's got my wife jumpy at night now. Every time she hears a noise she jumps up to check and make sure that nobody's killing the other dogs."

Phillips told WJXT reporter Dan Leveton that at first he and his wife thought the dogs had run away into the woods, until the next day when Mrs. Phillips went into the back yard and made a horrible discovery.

"She was picking the dogs up and happened to look down and seen a white paw sticking up out of the dirt. She noticed it was one of my hunting dogs and she called me at work. I came back home after work with my brother and we started digging them up and noticed the other two were laying on top of each other in the same hole," Phillips said.

Investigators have been out in the community interviewing neighbors about the incident, but still have little to go on.