NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — There were new developments Thursday afternoon in the Bedford County farmhouse fire that apparently claimed four lives.
Investigators quickly located the bodies of 72-year-old Leon McClaran and his 70-year-old wife, Molli, following the Sunday night blaze. Officials also expected to find the bodies of two of the McClaran's grandchildren in the rubble, but haven't been able to find them.
On Wednesday, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation began a wider search for the missing grandchildren, issuing issued endangered child alert for 9-year-old Chloie Leverette and 7-year-old Gage Daniel.
Late Thursday morning the TBI’s Kristin Helm told WMOT News that investigators now feel that they’ve exhausted all otehr possible leads in the search.
“Nothing turned up to us at this time to show that they might be somewhere other than in that house. So we are shifting our focus back to the home and going to be sifting through the debris of the home to see if we can find some remains.”
Helms says the TBI has asked a forensic team from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to help comb through the what's left of the Unionville area home.