BRUNSWICK, Ga. – The eight people killed inside a Glynn County mobile home 10 days ago were beaten to death, the Glynn County Police Department said Monday.
Glynn police Capt. Marissa Tindale said there was evidence that multiple weapons were used in an attack early the morning of Aug. 29 in the single-wide home at the New Hope Mobile Park , but she would not say what weapons were used.
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Guy Heinze Jr., 22 -- the son of one of the victims and who was related to all but one of the other victims -- was arrested Friday night and charged with eight counts of murder.
A ninth victim -- a 3-year-old nephew of Heinze -- remains in critical condition at a Savannah hospital.
"Guy Heinze Jr. ... struck (victim) with a blunt instrument about (victims) body causing death," the arrest report reads. "He unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied, caused the death of another human being."
Heinze has made his initial court appearance on Monday via closed-circuit television from the Glynn County Detention Center, his attorney, Ron Harrison, said Tuesday. His preliminary hearing likely will come next week, unless he is indicted by the grand jury before that.
Heinze's attorney Ron Harrison said he met with Heinze over the weekend and Tuesday morning and had this message:
"To continue to deny his involvement, I want to be perfectly clear about that," Harrison said.
Harrison said he didn't even know Heinze had been rearrested Friday night after bonding out for a short time until another attorney told him. He said Heinze was surprised, too.
"Heinze was in shock," Harrison said. "He had only been out approximately an hour period of time when he was rearrested. So he was disappointed, upset."
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Harrison said he does not know what the two pieces of evidence were that came forward Friday evening, which prompted investigators to rearrest Heinze.
Police still would not discuss a motive for the killings or whether Heinze acted alone.
CNN reported that Heinze's father -- 46-year-old Guy Heinze Sr. -- was recently awarded $25,000 in a civil lawsuit filed in neighboring McIntosh County.
Family members said the elder Heinze told relatives about the Aug. 11 award days before his death, but an appeal was filed and he had not received the money.
Hours after Heinze Jr. alerted neighbors to the mass killing and frantically told a 911 operator "My whole family is dead," he was arrested on several charges, including tampering with evidence. Police said he removed a shotgun from the house and hid it from authorities before they arrived.
Six days later, only 90 minutes after he bonded out of jail on those charges, he was rearrested and charged with murder.
After funeral services for Heinze Sr. and six other members of the extended family on Saturday, Heinze Jr.'s brother and grandfather both were skeptical about the charges.
"We want to know what really happened," William said. "Police may think they know, but we want to know really and truly, and it could not be one person doing all of that."
Tyler Heinze, 16, defended his older brother and believes he did not kill his family.
"Somebody stripped them of their lives for no reason," Tyler said. "Whoever done this, they might have a reason -- drug money or some kind of drugs somebody didn't get. But that is not worth taking my family away from me. I want whoever is watching that did this, think about what you took away from us."
Other family members echoed the same sentiment. Lori Davis, an aunt to the Toler family, talked about when they heard Heinze Jr. was arrested Friday night.
"When we were told last night that they had arrested Guy Heinze Jr. for this murder, we were floored," Davis said. "I don't see how anybody could do that to his family."
