MANDAN, N.D. — Police on Tuesday identified the owner of a North Dakota property management business and three employees as the people whose bodies were found there a day earlier, and said authorities don't yet know who killed them.
Police Chief Jason Ziegler released the names of the four victims, but offered few additional details about a mystery that has gripped the area since authorities found the bodies Monday morning at RJR Maintenance and Management in Mandan, just across the Missouri River from the state capital of Bismarck.
Ziegler did not say how the victims were killed. He said police were awaiting autopsy results and that authorities did not recover a weapon. He also would not say whether police have identified a potential motive. Yet he remained adamant that authorities do not believe the public is at risk, "based upon what we know at the crime scene."
"This incident was specific to the victims," Ziegler said. "We do not believe the public is in danger."
Ziegler identified the dead as owner Robert Fakler, 52; and employees Adam Fuehrer, 42, Lois Cobb, 45, and William Cobb, 50.
The Cobbs were married. Lois Cobb's daughter, Briann Miller, of Girard, Illinois, said her mom and stepdad had moved to North Dakota six years ago from Illinois and recently bought their dream home. She said authorities gave her no details on how they died.
"I just know that it was an attack," Miller said. "I don't know how it happened, what it happened with. I'm left in the dark still. None of this makes any sense. All I know is my parents are gone."
Lois Cobb was an account specialist and William Cobb a maintenance supervisor, according to the company's website.