MOULTRIE, Ga. — Results from examinations of three dogs whose bodies were found at the scene of a mass homicide have been completed, but police currently are withholding the reports pending further investigation.

  The Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed on Thursday that it had received the necropsy reports for the three dogs found at the wood-frame residence located in a pecan orchard about 50 yards off the roadway. 

Two of the dogs were inside the 505 Rossman Dairy Road residence where five young adults were found dead on the morning of May 15, the GBI reported earlier, and one was outside.

Investigators say that someone shot the four men and one woman before setting the house on fire. They have arrested an acquaintance of the five and charged him with five counts of murder.

“We’re not going to release them at this time, pending some other investigation,” Jamy Steinberg, special agent in charge of the GBI’s Thomasville Office, said on Thursday of the reports on the dogs. 

He cited the need to talk with additional potential witnesses who have been identified and to follow up on other leads for the delay in the release of the reports.

It is not unusual for law enforcement agencies to withhold specific pieces of information about an investigation from the public, one reason being to ensure that witnesses’ recollections are not clouded by accounts that have appeared in the media.

Other than the necropsies, Steinberg said there was nothing else new to announce at this time, and that there is no timetable for when additional information will be shared with the public.

“Nothing has been scheduled,” he said. “We’re still waiting on lab results.”

So far, the GBI has not commented on a motive for the slayings or whether any weapons have been recovered.

The deaths — and the details learned so far — have shocked the community. After the fire was reported shortly before 8:30 a.m. on May 15, investigators found inside the residence the bodies of Alicia Brooke Norman, 20; Jonathan Garrett Edwards, Ramsey Jones Pidcock, and Aaron Reid Williams, all 21; and 22-year-old Jordan Shane Croft.

Investigators quickly suspected that they were dealing with a multiple homicide, in part based on the unlikelihood that out of five healthy adults none of them got out of the house. Forensic autopsies confirmed those suspicions when they revealed that all five had been shot.

On the Wednesday three days after the fire, police called in 24-year-old Jeffrey Alan Peacock. The GBI took him into custody at that time and charged him the following day with five counts of felony murder and one count of felony arson.

Peacock was the second of three callers to report the fire to Colquitt County E-911, and was at the scene when a Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office deputy arrived. At that time, according to sheriff’s reports, Peacock told the officer that he had been with the five residents in the house earlier that morning and had driven into Moultrie to pick up breakfast for all of them.

He told the deputy that when he returned about an hour later he found the house on fire.

“The victims were shot inside the residence by Peacock, who set fire to the house in an attempt to conceal the crimes,” the GBI said in a news release the day of Peacock’s arrest.

A Colquitt County Magistrate Court judge denied bond for Peacock during an initial hearing. That was a a formality, as that court is not authorized to grant bonds on serious felonies, including murder.

No bond hearing with a Superior Court judge has been scheduled.

Jon McClure, supervising public defender in Colquitt County, is representing Peacock. 

With the investigation continuing at full steam, prosecutors do not think there is time to take the case to a grand jury when it next convenes on June 16. 

If the investigation — including all laboratory reports — is completed in time, prosecutors could seek an indictment in September, said Brad Shealy, chief assistant district attorney for the Southern Judicial Circuit that includes Colquitt County.

“Obviously it will depend on getting all of the reports, including toxicology,” Shealy said. “There is no way we’ll have all the reports and toxicology results” in less than two weeks.

“It’s more likely that the first one after that (in September) will be the earliest opportunity.”

After September the grand jury meets next in December. 

In addition to the five felony murder counts, prosecutors will seek to have Peacock indicted on multiple counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Felony murder is a murder committed while in the act of committing another felony.