On 722 Lester

(Photo: WMC) Originally posted on 3/3. Click the conversation for more.

UPDATE 11PM: After the late newscasts were done, the Commercial Appeal posts some gruesome details about the surviving children:

One of the three children who survived the mass killings on Lester Street was found with a knife protruding from his head and another had two fingertips cut off, The Commercial Appeal learned Thursday.

Oh my. Another excerpt:

Relatives said the police have told them little about the crime scene other than indicating it was horrific.

“I feel like my nephews and nieces were tortured and my brother was made to watch in order for him to go through it,” said Nicole Dotson. “I have no idea who did it, but I feel like it’s somebody who knows him and knows those kids and that’s the reason why they did that — to hurt my brother — and they did that so the kids would not identify them.”

Relatives of Roberson also believe this was not simply a matter of quick executions.
Police said there were no signs of a break-in, and there was likely more than one killer. But they remained without a clear motive or a prime suspect Thursday.

A knife to the child's head? Cutting off fingertips? Was this payback? Damn, that's a whole lot of hatred.


Tha MATT says sources point to MS-13, a notorious Mexican gang.



UPDATE 7:30PM: Apparently, the Lester killings are the latest third rail.

EyeNews reported that WDIA morning show host and program manager Bobby O'Jay was criticized for remarks that at least one caller felt might discourage someone who might have information about the killings from calling CrimeStoppers.

Now, according to EyeNews, O'Jay is catching flack for it. Hmm. An excerpt from EyeNews:

Investigators are begging the public to call with any information that could lead to the arrest of the killer or killers. However, a popular Memphis radio host is being criticized for discouraging listeners from calling in tips to Crime Stoppers and police.

"When you get it and get all that money at one time, the people in the hood are gonna know you got it and people start talking," WDIA radio host Bobby O'Jay said on his morning radio show.

O'Jay told listeners to think twice about phoning in tips about the murders on Lester Street.

"People will hit you in the mouth for telling the smallest of things. 'Man, I heard you say so-and-so and so-and-so.' People will hurt you for telling the smallest of things, and nine times out of ten, people will be wondering where did that money come from? You can't just say 'I won it at the casino.'"

Another excerpt:

Another listener called into the show, very upset with the remarks O'Jay made.

"I agree with you all of the time, but this morning, you were all out of left field," the caller said. "That was pretty untactful what you said this morning about the Crime Stoppers.

O'Jay fired back at the woman saying, "What you said ma'am, is not what I said. What you said is adding a negativity to something I was being positive about this morning. It was negative what you said this morning. I'm through with you, goodbye." O'Jay then hung up on the caller.

Some context is needed.

EyeNews didn't provide the full show so it's unclear if O'Jay clarified his statement; in fact, the transcription on the Web site is different than the one Dana Rebik used in her report for the 6 p.m. newscast. In the live report, you hear O'Jay pose the question of whether a person would leave Memphis if he/she gets the reward money.

OK, I listen to O'Jay quite often. Yes, he can rub people the wrong way; however, I think someone overreacted to his comments because--and I can't believe that I'm about to say this--I agree with Dr. Kenneth Whalum Jr. who agreed that O'Jay has a point.

O'Jay is right: someone who walked into a house and killed six out of nine people is out on the streets and whomever might have information about said person(s) could be putting themselves at risk by calling Crime Stoppers because 1) the reward is now $81,000 (it was only $31,000 this morning), and 2) people have this problem of not keeping secrets to themselves. Some folks talk.

In some cases, that fact nearly trumps CrimeStoppers's unblemished history of never having an tipster revealed or face retaliation. Still, the $81,000 is mainly comprised of $50,000 from the Governor and $30,000 from the Memphis City Council but the money is only payable upon arrest, charges and conviction. That could take years, though it doesn't diminish the prospect of someone being exposed even then.

The point is that there is a risk--even when it comes to doing the right thing.

On another note, why did EyeNews focus on O'Jay? He might be a victim of his own success. WDIA's Fun Morning Show is one of the highest rated radio programs in the city, which means that he has a large audience. And if you want to know the mood of black Memphis, the first stop is listening to the oldest black radio station in the nation, WDIA.

Still, though, it does seem strange to call O'Jay to the carpet when other talk radio hosts, like Ben Ferguson and Mike Fleming, have also said or allowed inflammatory remarks about Lester to air on their programs. Heck, on any given day, you can find something to get upset about on talk radio. To that end, why not listen and report on all the radio programs because the Lester killings is a hot topic across the city? It's easy to see why WDIA's Fun Afternoon Show hosts were upset that EyeNews seemingly recorded the show. The station was singled out.

(Note: there are paid services that monitor and record all manner of broadcast programming, searching for keywords and phrases, for PR purposes. It's unclear whether EyeNews used one of them but the station knows these services are available. But I digress.)

Lastly, the report spends much of its energy one caller, the woman who vehemently disagreed with O'Jay. That's hardly representative, though to its credit EyeNews talked to Whalum who offered some insight into what O'Jay was trying to say.

Bottom line: it'll be interesting to listen to O'Jay in the morning.

WREG: Reach out to the families. Shindri remembered.
WMC: A growing memorial.
Fox13: More outrage at the focus on criminal records. Details count.

ON AN UNRELATED, BUT RELATED, NOTE: Trust Pays.

UPDATED 12:30PM: From Fox 13: A mystery phone call?

This afternoon as Nicole Dotson, sister of Cecil Dotson,one of the people murdered at Lester Street, was speaking to homicide detectives her cell phone rang.

When she checked the caller i.d., she realized it was a call from her apartment that was supposed to be vacant.

Memphis Police are currently on the scene investigating whether the apartment invasion might be link to the Lester Street killings.

Interesting. WMC says there's a large police presence at Goodwill Village apartment complex. Are these events related?

BTW, I am temporarily suspending disbelief that such a call could really occur. When an apartment is vacant, do you leave phone service in tact? Maybe, she still lives there but didn't expect anyone to be there when she wasn't.

I am sane.

UPDATED, 11:30AM: Noticed this Letter To The Editor:

As a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at LeBonheur Children's Medical Center for 14 years, I am very saddened at the most recent story of tragedy in our city (March 4 article, "Six killed at home").

It must be said, however, that for every case of child neglect-abuse or murder that is publicized, there are 10 cases the public never knows about. Why is that? Why doesn't our community care that it has one of the highest morbidity-mortality rates in the nation? Why are the children of our community left in homes where their lives are endangered?

Don't say it isn't our responsibility. It is.

Jay Johnston
Hernando

The surviving children are at Le Bonheur, right? Is he still employed there? Isn't it kind of improper for him to comment--even though it's well-intentioned? Could he be a good source? Surely, a reporter will try to find out.

Branston, an excerpt:

Hundreds of assaults, shootings, and even most murders each week make little if any news, but the neighbors and friends of the victims get the scoop and spread the word.

The overall effect is certain to heighten perceptions that crime is out of control and Memphis is in a downward spiral.

Where did it happen?

Was it random?

Could it happen at my house and my kid's school?

Could I be the next victim?

How can I make myself and my family safer?

Six murders in one house defies the journalistic shorthand of double, triple, and quadruple homicide. Now it's mass murder. And every day, every week, it seems that life gets a little less pleasant in the City of Good Abode.

A skeptical reporter is a good thing but there's always the danger of skepticism fermenting into pessimism the longer that reporter stays in one place and is exposed to what he/she comes across everyday in reporting.

This is not to suggest that Branston is a pessimist (he would probably define himself as a realist) but the by-product of pessimism--seeing and expecting the worse--afflicts the media moreso than we care to admit.

How will the media combat its own pessimism in order to help us understand ours? Usually, reporters just change beats to get a fresh perspective but that no longer seems to be enough.

UPDATED (3/6): (Photo: Mallry family) The water is already polluted.

All of the discussion about the victims' records taints the public perception of them and it's not right, especially since nothing has come forward to suggest that the past crimes played a role in their deaths.

Citizen Editor Jerome Wright reflects on growing up near Lester. An excerpt:

The block of Lester where the killings occurred and our block of Carpenter are part of the northern rim of Binghamton. A huge feed mill compound put an exclamation point on that northern boundary.

The houses on our block were post-war homes, built around 1950 to be affordable for servicemen who had fought in World War II. The homes on that block of Lester were newer and some of us considered the people who lived in them a bit more affluent.

It was the 1950s and early 1960s. With segregated neighborhoods. Segregated schools. Riding in the back of the bus. "Colored" water fountains. Limited access to the zoo, fairgrounds and movie theaters.

Because of segregation, housing options were limited for "colored" people. As a result, professional people lived next door to non-professionals. For example, my mom was a nurse and my dad worked for the post office. The man on one side of us was a junk dealer, who collected stuff in a mule-drawn wagon. He kept the mule in his back yard and you could really smell the animal when it rained. Every once in a while, the mule would break free and go galloping down the street.

That type of social interaction was typical up and down our street, and in nearly all black neighborhoods. You don't see a lot of that now. Those who can afford to move into better neighborhoods do, leaving those who can't behind.

Parents, with the help of neighbors, kept a tighter rein on their kids. You were made to stay close to home. Going across the street or up the street was forbidden, and getting permission to do so was rare.

In reading this, this is the kind of reporting, the kind of nuance, that I feel is sorely absent from the reporting on the Lester killings. Sure, there have been stories where the neighbors have been interviewed and understandably they are afraid but the reporting overall--in the CA and on TV--hasn't gone beyond that surface.

We have some really good journalists in this city who very well capable of telling that story. And while we might be suffering from the loss of institutional knowledge like the kind Wright taps into, a good journalist can make up the difference by asking the right questions. Also, a good editor should be able to spot reporting deficiencies and fix them before they go into print.

To me, the story of Lester is a story of struggle, defined not by successes but trying to overcome a history--perhaps an ingrained cycle--of making bad mistakes. Maybe, it's because I'm an optimist that I'm willing to give the families and friends the benefit of the doubt when they say these individuals were turning their lives around, trying to break that cycle which is easier said than done.

The harping on their criminal records only shows what WE, the media, think of them. It's as if we are the judge, jury and executioner.

ON ANOTHER NOTE, as if to prove my points, EyeNews notes that Marissa was a member of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. She was much more than a person with a troubled past. WREG on Seals.

Also, more light on Le Bonheur. OK, I realize that it makes sense to seclude the surviving children but the scarcity of information about their status--some of it prevented by privacy laws and by the police--is another bit of tension and suspense in this story.

UPDATE 10PM: WREG says it has photos of the child victims but it is not showing them because the family doesn't even know for sure which of the children are dead or alive.

Let me pose this question: if the adult victims had no criminal records, do you think that their families would be prevented from even having contact with their loved ones?

I seriously doubt that. Sure, these are witnesses to a crime but they are seemingly being treated like abuse victims at Le Bonheur. It just seems a bit much.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: WMC's Janice Broach speaks to family members and friends of the other victims, and even though those people feel that it's wrong for the media to typecast the victims based on their past records, Donna Davis still ran off the list of crimes that each committed. And there's still no real relevance.

Fox13: A church wake-up call.

UPDATE 7:30PM: (Photo: EyeNews) EyeNews's interactive town hall meeting is on air right now.

From a technological standpoint, it's an interesting convergence of a live newscast and online chatting, but you have to register with or be a member of EyeNews's Website to join the Live Chat. (I'm really not that pressed to do so. But it seems like the chat room is very active. They showed it on TV.) Still, EyeNews has incorporated CrimeStoppers into the program as well as video from stories of past crimes that are unsolved.

There's some good information so far about how CrimeStoppers works. At the very least, I applaud the effort, though the execution has its limits.

I think this program is over the top. Memphis is as crime-plagued as any other city its size. Some of the questions being posed simply represent an ignorance that EyeNews, or its guests, is not really trying to dispel, more like validate.

ON ANOTHER NOTE, EyeNews's interview with Nicole. (Fox13) The history of local violence: EyeNews goes all the way back to 1870. How ludicrous.

WMC pulls O.C. Smith out from under a rock. Are we that desperate for local "experts"?
WMC: CrimeStoppers.
WREG: The victims' criminal histories. An excerpt:

Shindri Roberson has her own criminal past. She was locked up several times for prostitution.

But her cousin says she was turning her life around.

"Yeah she got into trouble. She had a past, but it wasn't nothing for her to be gone off the face of the earth." says Liggins.

WREG: The reward is up to $31,000. Shouldn't it be higher? I mean, there were nine victims in all. At $5,000 a victim, shouldn't it be $45,000?

Fox13: Grief counselors standing by. Branston. Tha MATT..

UPDATE 4:30PM: (Photo: SCSD) How much empathy will the city have for deceased folks with criminal records? This should be interesting. Why even go there? Remember, they are the victims in this tragedy.

Also, the CA gets the rest of the names from Dotson's sister:

This afternoon, Nicole Dotson, Cecil Dotson's sister, gave The Commercial Appeal the names of the five children, although she did not know who had survived. They are two Cecil Dotsons, ages 9 and 2; Cedric Dotson, 5; Cemarrio Dotson, 4; and a 2-month old girl, also a Dotson, but the aunt was uncertain about the spelling of her first name.

OK, the CA, or any of the other media, couldn't ask the other families for better photographs?

Why must they be shown in death at one of their lowest moments in life?

EyeNews: $30,000 reward. It appears that Nicole Dotson is the family spokesperson.

CA: The surviving kids are not alone at the hospital. Is the CA alleging that the kids were abused? No, they are trauma sufferers. An excerpt that begins after a hospital spokesperson explains the children's care:

But that doesn’t mean the kids are left alone, said Susan Steppe, director of LeBonheur’s child assessment program. She said children who have suffered severe trauma are constantly attended to.

“They are no not left alone in that situation and in a frightened situation,” Steppe said.

Steppe leads the hospital’s Child Assessment Program that evaluates all children entering the hospital who are possible victims of abuse and neglect or who have suffered a severe trauma.

These children receive a medical and psycho-social evaluation to determine whether the case should be referred to the Department of Child Services.

Steppe said child abuse, including any attack on a child, affects thousands of Shelby County children year. Since Monday, the Child Assessment Team has been involved with five children in addition to those found at 722 Lester.

In 2007, there were more than 8,000 investigations of possible abuse and neglect in Shelby County. In the past eight months, the assessment team has reviewed more than 250 children suspected to be victims of abuse.

“On an ongoing basis we see many, many children growing up unsafe and who are unnurtured,” Steppe said.

This is very delicate ground.

UPDATED 2PM: On the Marissa Williams question, an excerpt from the updated CA story:

Shaw said the family believes that another one of the victims is Marissa Williams, a longtime live-in girlfriend of her son's and, she said, the mother of four of his children. Shaw said the family is grieving, but does want the public to know there was another side to her son than the criminal record that includes assaults with a deadly weapon, one as recently as an aggravated robbery in January.

So, Williams was not the "former girlfriend" who found the bodies. OK, let's go back to the 2005 order of protection:Dotson and Williams had apparently reconciled since 2005--and even had another child together. See, public records don't give you the full context.

Thankfully, the CA and other media are refining this as they go along.

ON ANOTHER NOTE, isn't it time for the police to identify all of the victims since they are already publicly known? OK, the names of the adults.

The iDiva. MCS statement.

UPDATED 12:30PM: (Photo/CA) The CA talks to Dotson's family and also notes sources that identify another possible victim as Hollis Seals.

Also, the CA has a story on the 2005 order of protection against Dotson by his former girlfriend, Marissa Williams. An excerpt:

Dotson, who was living in an apartment on Spottswood Avenue at the time, was renting the home at 722 Lester where four adults and two children were found slain Monday evening. Thee [sic] other children have been hospitalized with serious injuries.

At the time of the 2005 order of protection filing, Dotson and Williams had three children, including Cecil Dotson Jr., 6, Cedrick Williams, 3, and CeMario Dotson, 2.

Police have not identified any of the victims in the Lester attack and have made no arrests.

According to the protection order, Dotson came to Williams’ residence, became upset during an argument and struck her in the face with his closed fist. Williams suffered a swollen face, a black eye and a chipped tooth, according to the petition for the protective order.

She told police Dotson previously had hit her, pushed her, choked her and kicked her.

“The victim fears for her safety and would like a court order for Cecil Dotson to have no contact with her,” according to her petition.

Notice the children are identified. Are those current ages? It's unclear and no one has been officially identified.

In any event, this order of protection happened three years ago. Hardly current history, and only serves to heighten the storyline of Dotson as a criminal whose lifestyle perhaps contributed to his death.

Besides, isn't Williams the one who discovered the bodies?

UPDATED 10AM: Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton Jr. released a statement about Lester.

UPDATED (3/5) 7:30AM: Like TV yesterday, The Commercial Appeal today pokes through Cecil Dotson's criminal past. An excerpt:

That scene apparently included Dotson, whose criminal background stretches back to Juvenile Court and includes an aggravated robbery charge from January for which the 30-year-old was to appear in court Tuesday.

According to an affidavit, on Jan. 9 Dotson was driving a green van that nearly hit a pedestrian near the bus stop at Walker and Brister. When the man yelled at him, Dotson stopped the van, pointed a .45-caliber handgun at him and took his wallet.

Dotson's criminal past also included reckless driving, assault and aggravated assault, as well as an order of protection filed against him. His Juvenile Court record included a slew of arrests -- aggravated assault, burglary of a building, criminal trespassing and unlawful possession of a weapon.

In 1995 Dotson, then 17, was transferred to Criminal Court for prosecution as an adult on the aggravated assault charge. Arrest records show in July of that year police responded to a shots-fired call to 578 Lauderdale. When they arrived, they found a woman with a gunshot wound to the right hand. Police records show "Dotson shot up the house" after a heated argument.

There have been no indications from police whether Dotson's criminal history is relevant to the killings, and his mother and sister insisted in an interview with WMC-TV Channel 5 that there was no reason to believe Dotson would be involved in a violent incident.

Again, there have been no indications that Dotson's criminal history is even relevant to what happened on Lester. Yet, that disclaimer appears deep in the story when it should have been in the second or third paragraph since most people stop reading an article after the first few graphs.

What also bothers me is that the CA, like TV, does little to shed light on the public record, which presents facts but not full context. I'm just sayin, his record only tells us one part of him. We don't know the other side.

So far, the media has talked to the landlord, neighbors, a clinical psychologist, pastors and city leaders but so far only WMC has actually talked to his family one-on-one, to even seek a picture of him that is not a mug shot. That is so telling. (Just noticed, WREG's interview.)

The CA story quotes his family but it's only what they told WMC. What's going on here? Are other outlets having problems contacting the family? Are they really trying to give the family some space to grieve? Well, that space is really turning into a freedom to influence perceptions of Dotson and whether he brought this death upon himself. (No one deserves to die like he and the others did.)

Again, I understand that his past is one piece of the story, but it's not really surprising to me that Dotson has a record. A few days ago, the Pew Center on the States released a report that one in 100 Americans is in jail; one in nine black men, aged 20 to 34, are incarcerated. (Dotson was 30.) Most of that is the result of the get-tough on crime mentality.

I can only imagine the incarcerated ratio in Memphis, a predominantly African American city where the police concentrate enforcement based on statistical models that disproportionately focus on neighborhoods like Binghampton. Yet, that story barely got any play in Memphis, but I'll talk about that more this weekend. The bottom line: we, as a nation, must change our approach toward crime and incarceration, which means the media must change its approach on those issues too.

On another note, Fox13 continues to cast a suspicious eye at Dotson's brother, Jessie. While the police will not confirm whether Cecil was killed, Fox13 quotes the police as saying that Jessie is "alive and well." It's a matter of the tone in Valerie Calhoun's voice. But I digress.

The neighborhood (EyeNews). WREG. An editorial. A program note. A Rant. The stain.

UPDATE 8PM: (Photo: WMC) Fox13:

FOX13 has learned Memphis police have been called to this home twice this year. The renter, Cecil Dotson, called police in February, when the mother of one of his children allegedly took the child without permission.

A month before, Dotson called police when his brother reportedly took his leather jacket. Dotson told police, his brother pulled out a handgun when he tried to get it back. According to the report, Dotson says his brother Jessie, threatened to harm or kill him or his family 1 or 2 times.


More vigils. MDN. Friends remember Dotson.

UPDATE 7PM: WMC: Dotson's family searches for answers and his sister does not believe that drugs were involved.

And WMC examines Dotson's criminal record. You knew that this was going to come up as everyone searches for answers. (WREG has his police mug.)

Let me go on record as protesting: unless you know that the deceased's criminal record played a role in his/her death then the only thing you really accomplish is leaving a lasting memory of that person as a crook.

Regardless of past errors, no one deserves to die like he and the others did.

A WMC excerpt:

Cecil Dotson's criminal record includes charges for reckless driving, aggravated assault, and a protection order.

On January 9th, Dotson was charged with aggravated robbery. According to the court documents, Dotson was scheduled to appear in General Sessions Court at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Dotson did not appear Tuesday, but his attorney did, and his case was rescheduled for April 9.

EyeNews does a more extensive vetting of Dotson's criminal past.

This is really typical--a reliance on public records, never even bothering to talk to his family (at least WMC did that) or even examining those past crimes to see if he just might have been wrongfully accused or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where's the balance? Where's the responsibility to go beyond what's convenient?

I swear, why do we even allow people to serve time if we are going to continually persecute them--even in death? We might as well keep them in jail.

The MPD Press Release. EyeNews, where the killings have sparked the need for another town hall meeting slated to take place March 5 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. I'm not going to knock the need for discussion but an hour--an hour--I only wish the issue of crime was that simple but it's not which says to me that these town hall meetings (and WMC plans to re-air its town hall on school security this weekend) are nothing but therapy sessions. No real solutions.

Consider this: there was no forced entry at 722 Lester. That means that the victims--as many victims do--knew their killer(s). How are you going to stop that? It's not random. It's pre-meditated. You can't stop that. But I digress. (Other thoughts. 1,2,3,4,5)

On another note, I meant to mention this earlier but the Geoff & Gary Show spent the morning talking about the Lester killings, not sports. Puts things into perspective. (Too bad, the show makes it so darn difficult to link to content.)

WMC: Gunshots common in neighborhood. The Mayor speaks, calls Lester a "human tragedy."
Fox13. The owner. The MPD news conference unedited.

WREG: Memphis crime publicized around the world. Any outlet with access to a news wire got this story. What else should they do with it? This really convinces one that even the reporters in Memphis have a negative view of the city. And I think that comes from covering all crime, all the time. That impacts reporting more than we care to admit.

ON AN UNRELATED, BUT RELATED, NOTE: All crime, all the time.

UPDATED 1PM: Police are working with "a blank sheet of paper." (WHBQ) No motives. No suspect(s), who could still be at-large.

Very few details being released, even protecting the ages of the children who survived. (One child's condition has been upgraded.) Though, the age information is out there via the media through police and fire sources.

The prayer vigil. (CA, WMC. EyeNews. Fox13) Look at how empty the church was this morning. Dang.


UPDATED 9:45AM (MH): (Photo:Fox13) Blogger Thaddeus Matthews quoting unnamed "sources" says he's been told three of the adults shot to death had criminal records and that this may have been a drug deal gone horribly bad.

UPDATED 9 AM (RT): So, who found the bodies? The CA reports that a "relative" found the bodies but in a review of last night's reports EyeNews noted that Cecil Dotson's ex-girlfriend made the discovery when she came to the house to pick up her child, found two cars in the driveway and the door partially open.

If that's true, then it's interesting because the CA quoted the landlord as saying that Dotson had problems with the ex-girlfriend.

UPDATE 8AM(MH):Very little official information is being released still. Four of the six dead are adults and two children; all of the three injured are children. They are being treated at LeBonheur Children's Hospital. Several media sources report the family of the children has barred the hopsital from releasing any information.

John Branston, a former Commercial Appeal reporter and now a columnist with the Memphis Flyer, writes as a stringer for the New York Times. He contributed to this Times report, which has this passage:

Two men and two women in their late 20s or early 30s and two girls under the age of 5 were found dead in a single-family home in Binghamton, a neighborhood east of downtown, said Melanie Young, a spokeswoman for the fire department. Three more children, a 7-year-old, a 4-year-old and an infant were taken to a hospital in “extremely critical” condition, Ms. Young said. All nine victims had gunshot wounds.

Branston is the only person reporting, at this time, that all nine were shot. (The CA's morning story also had that info.)

Many reports from a man who says he owns the home and rents it to a Cecil Dotson, who shares the home with his girlfriend and their four children. WHBQ has a report from Melissa Scheffler; they identify a woman she spoke with as Nicole Dotson, the sister of Cecil, who confirmed the above. If you listen closely to the report, you can hear her list names, but I couldn't make them out.

Apparently, the mother of the fifth child in the home, and a former girlfriend of Dotson, began the discovery process:

She says her brother didn't show for work Monday and around 10 a.m. that same morning she got a call from the mother of one of Cecil's children. According to Dotson, the child's mother said no one answered the door or phone when she stopped by the home on Lester to pick up her child. "She came to get he baby last night and the cars were there and there was no answer," says Dotson. "There was no answer and the door was open."

MyEyewitness News, WMC, Commercial Appeal.

The WMC story has this:

Though the bodies were discovered Monday night, it was unclear exactly when the murders took place. Neighbors in the area reported hearing a disturbance at the home over the weekend, including the sound of gunshots around 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

But MyNews's Tennika Smith is reporting this morning that a neighbor says he heard gunshots on Saturday night.

(Photos: EyeNews/CA) Posted 3/3.

UPDATE (3/4, 7AM): EyeNews reports that authorities removed bodies from the house around midnight this morning. Also, authorities are expected to release more information today.
On another note, sometimes, you have to trust your gut. Last night, Hollihan noted that Lester might be the worst mass killing since Shannon Street in 1983 and he was on track. An excerpt from the CA:

Although the tragedy on Lester Street was the worst mass killing of its kind, at least in recent Memphis history, there was one other case in which more were killed.

Details

In January of 1983, Memphis Police Officer Robert S. Hester was taken hostage on Shannon Street by religious cult leader Lindbergh Sanders and a group of followers.

After a 30-hour standoff, during which Hester was beaten to death, police stormed the house, killing Sanders and six followers, for a total death toll of eight.

I guess the fine hair is that the Lester killings are considered homicides where as the Shannon Street Massacre--only one person was officially murdered, Ofc. Hester, and the rest of the deaths were classified otherwise. I'm just sayin, no officer was charged with murder for the other deaths following Shannon Street.

But I digress.

WREG.

ON AN UNRELATED, BUT RELATED, NOTE: Two more shot overnight in a home invasion.
UPDATED: 10:34PM: Quoting unidentified sources, WMC reports that the adults were shot, the children were stabbed and all of the bodies were found in the same room.

UPDATED 10PM: WMC is calling it the " Lester Street Massacre" and they are calling it murder. So is WREG now. CNN.

9:50PM: On WREG, the ticker notes that police are calling "Lester" a "death investigation." So, these deaths have not yet been ruled homicides?

ORIGINAL POST: Tonight, police discovered the bodies of six people, including two children, in what is being described as the worst mass killing in 15 years--and the death toll could rise since three more children, ages ranging from 10 months to nine years old--were transferred by ambulance to Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center in extremely critical condition.

According to police, the victims were shot--one of them identified as Cecil Dotson. He lived there with his girlfriend and their four children, according to Fox13, and one child in the house was not related.

EyeNews. Fox13.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: Potentially the worst mass death in years but TV programming goes on as usual? Interesting.

ON AN UNRELATED, BUT RELATED, NOTE: Cold cases. Can money compel someone to do the right thing, especially since they know a family's desperation will raise the reward even more?