Three people, tied up with plastic zip ties, were shot execution style and set on fire inside a barn in rural Pennsylvania on a summer day two and a half years ago. Authorities say they have found the culprits behind the gangland-style killings, the New York Times reports. Eleven people who federal prosecutors said were members of the Black Guerrilla Family, a nationwide gang active in drug trafficking, murder and other crimes, were indicted in connection with the killings. Officials said the deaths began as part of a plot to silence a police informant, and grew to include the killing of two others. The defendants have been charged with a range of crimes including murder, attempted murder, witness tampering, robbery, drug trafficking and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.
One defendants, Jerell Adgebesan, was tied up one year after the killings by several other defendants who wanted to kill him because they suspected he was cooperating with law enforcement, according to the indictment. He has been charged with murder, witness tampering and drug trafficking. The primary target of the killings was Wendy Chaney, who sold drugs for the gang — including cocaine hydrochloride, crack cocaine and heroin — in Franklin County, Pa. Prosecutors said she was an informant for the Washington County Drug Task Force in Hagerstown, Md., part of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Prosecutors said defendant Torey White, who had been in a romantic relationship with Chaney, lured her to a barn in Mercersburg, Pa., that was owned by Phillip Jackson, a local drug dealer whom the group planned to rob. Once there, prosecutors said, the defendants attacked Jackson, Chaney and a third person, Brandon Coles, binding their wrists before shooting them each in the head or back.