Three Young Sisters in Tragic ‘Drowning’ Were Actually Murdered, Cops Reveal

A medical examiner determined this week that a trio of sisters who briefly went missing before their bodies turned up in a Texas pond last summer were strangled to death before being abandoned in the water, sparking a homicide investigation.

The bodies of Zi’Ariel Oliver, 9, Amiyah Hughes, 8, and Temari Oliver, 5, were found in the pond on July 30 in rural Cass County—near the border with Arkansas. Their deaths were initially reported as tragic drownings that sent their family and the small community of Atlanta, Texas, into mourning.

New details emerging this week paint a different picture of what happened, however. A medical examiner determined the sisters had “lacerations” on their faces and that they all died by strangulation, said Cass County District Attorney Courtney Shelton in a news release obtained by the Texarkana Gazette.

Read more at The Daily Beast.