Thank you for posting this. I, too, believe the concentration should be elsewhere. LE has stated the family is not suspect. I would assume this means extended family. There also has been no statement to indicate involvement with anyone connected to a family member. IMO it would be more productive to concentrate on the murder scene and possible links to drawings of the POI.
The grandparents obviously know why the parents weren't listed in the obit. It appears it's not something they wish to be public information, and I, for one, respect their decision not to involve the natural parents. They have gone through enough w/o their family history and problems being opened to the public.
No, the Families are not "suspect" in the murders, but saying the family has been cleared just means no-one in the family killed the girls or had them killed...NOT that someone associated with a family member or in their circle of current or past "associates" didn't.
Sadly, most in the Placker/Paschal family but Peter and Vicky seem to have some significant difficulty staying on the right side of the law and several of them who aren't in some sort of criminal/legal trouble are dating or married to, or living with or involved with someone who is, or has been incarcerated.
The family associations could be the KEY to this whole case...especially since G-Pa Placker reportedly screamed "they killed them" when he found the girls shot dead.
There are a LOT of criminal types hanging around the whole
Placker/Paschal Family - and there are so many of these associates and relatives revolving constantly in and out of jail/prison it is difficult to figure out which are "in" and which are "out" at any given time. This cannot be ignored in a murder that was "execution style" where evidence is slim and the POI in a detailed sketch cannot be located despite national coverage.
It is highly unlikely that this murder was done by a stranger who just drove down the road and shot "someone" - chances are this murder is related somehow to someone in the Placker Family or associated with the family. It was an "execution" by someone who knew what they were doing and wasn't just screwing around - vengeance, retaliation and "pay backs" come to mind. And with criminals, it could have started with something as small as a slight or an insult or as big as a snitch or ratting someone out.
I think the family tree is very important - it's telling us that the family may have had criminals in their home and the girls may have been exposed to such people. It's telling us that some family members had associates who were capable of ordering a hit and had access to guns and cash and probably stolen vehicles.
My Opinion