Police Piecing Together Events Before The Killing Of 2 Women

DETROIT (WWJ) Authorities are working to piece together what happened between the morning when a southern Michigan mother apparently left home voluntarily with a family relative and a short time later when she and another woman were gunned down. 

Investigators have said they believe 30-year-old Amy Henslee left her home in Hartford Township on Monday with Junior Lee Beebe, her husband's cousin, but they don't know why.

Family and friends of a southern Michigan mother who was apparently gunned down along with another woman shortly after leaving her home with Beebe say they will push authorities to launch a missing persons search within 24 hours.

Investigators say they believe Tonya Howarth, whom Beebe dated on and off for the last few years, met up with Beebe and Amy Henslee in a wooded, rural area in Bangor Township, and shortly thereafter, both were dead of shotgun blasts.

"They'd fight and scream, we heard him knocking her down the stairs, and I told my husband, go out there, go out there," said Stacey Bunch, a friend of Howarth, the second victim. 

Bunch told WOOD-TV she had been afraid for her friend, Tonya Howarth, who also was allegedly killed by Junior Lee Beebe. "She'd come to our house with black eyes and I begged her right in front of her mom, I begged her, to leave him," Bunch sobbed.

Beebe remains behind bars, facing two counts of murder and possession of a firearm during a felony.