BEASON -- Ken Hutchison was cleaning out his garage Friday afternoon in Beason when he heard some children screaming.
"I thought 'Oh my gosh.' I grabbed a pipe and ran out," he said. "My wife heard it and she came running too."
It turned out they were just playing, he said.
"My wife told them, 'You scared me half to death," he said.
A week after five members of a Beason family were slain and a sixth, a 3-year-old daughter, was badly injured, people in the small town remain tense and anxious for the police to catch whoever did it.
"I just think everybody's real cautious right now, and really anxious for something to break," said Hutchison, the Oran Township supervisor. "No one's life is on hold, but everyone is watching a little more, especially strangers."
Logan County sheriff's police said there were no developments in the case to announce Sunday. Police still are asking for the public's help in finding a gray pickup truck with unusual exhaust pipes and suspects with fresh fight-related injuries.
The bodies of Raymond "Rick" Gee, 46, Ruth Gee, 39, and three of their children, Justina Constant, 16, Dillen Constant, 14, and Austin Gee, 11, were found late Monday afternoon at the scene of what the sheriff described Saturday as a "violent struggle."
The Gees' 3-year-old daughter, Tabitha, survived and remains at a Peoria hospital under police guard.
In the days immediately after the bodies were found, searchers combed through the surrounding farm fields and police removed hundreds of items from the home. By the end of the week, the searches were over and the home on Broadway Avenue was boarded up and left cordoned off behind police tape.
On Thursday Nichols announced the formation of a task force that includes local and state law enforcement agencies and the FBI.
Sheriff's deputies still seem to patrol the town virtually 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Hutchison said.
With the passage of time and the shift of police activity away from Beason, the mood of the 200 or so residents seems to be shifting too.
"Everybody's calming down from what it was, but they are still pretty tense," Hutchison said. "They're somewhat getting back to normal -- whatever that is."
Few people stop by to look at the Gee house anymore, he said. On the other hand, children were largely absent from the streets over the weekend.
"Kids are usually out in little groups, walking their dogs - you really don't see that yet," Hutchison said. "I wonder what Halloween will be like this year."
Some residents, especially older ones, have taken to locking their doors now, he said.
"Like my wife said, 'We lost our innocence,'" he said.
What to look for
Police investigating the Gee family homicide are asking for the public's help in finding the following:
- A pickup truck reportedly seen in the vicinity before midnight Sunday. The small truck, perhaps a Ford Ranger or Chevy S-10, has exhaust pipes protruding vertically from the back of the truck bed, between the wheel wells and the tailgate. The truck was described as painted primer gray in what was not a "factory paint job."
- Someone with unexplained cuts, bruises, abrasions, hair loss or other injuries that could have been suffered in a violent fight.
Anyone with information about the truck or someone with such injuries is asked to call the tip line at (217) 732-3000.
