Mass killing at trailer park

SEVEN people were slaughtered and two left fighting for their lives at a mobile home park in America's Deep South.

Cops in Georgia made the grisly discovery this morning after a family member of one of the victims called 911.

Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering said: "It's not a scene that I would want anybody to see."

He added it was the worst mass slaying in his 25 years of police work in this coastal Georgia county.

He would not say how the victims died, and he also declined to say whether police believe the killer was among the dead or remained at large.

No arrests had been made.

Investigators were talking to neighbours about whether they saw or heard anything unusual at the dingy mobile home shaded by large, moss-draped oaks with an old boat in the front yard.

Police had not interviewed the survivors, who remained in critical condition and may be the only witnesses.

"I assume they know something, but we have not been able to speak to them," the chief said.

All seven bodies were identified by Saturday evening.

Massacre

Doering said families of the victims had been notified, but he would not release any names or ages before receiving the autopsy results.

"I really don't know the ages," Doering said. "There were some older-aged victims and we believe there were some in their teens."

Located a few miles north of the port city of Brunswick, the mobile home park consists of about 100 spaces and is nestled among centuries-old live oak trees near the centre of New Hope Plantation, according to the plantation's Web site.

Lisa Vizcaino, who has lived at New Hope for three years, said the management works hard to keep troublemakers out of the mobile home park and that it tends to be quiet.

"New Hope isn't run down or trashy at all," Vizcaino said. "It's the kind of place where you can actually leave your keys in the car and not worry about anything."

Vizcaino said she didn't know the victims and heard nothing unusual when she woke up at 7am on Saturday morning. After word of the slayings spread, she said, the park was quieter than usual.

"Everybody had pretty much stayed in their houses," Vizcaino said. "Normally you would see kids outside, but everybody's been pretty much on lockdown."