Baseball Bat Murders Shock Us

Four men have been arrested after the murder of six people in Florida in an apparent dispute over some stolen clothes and a video games console.

The men, aged between 18 and 27, allegedly killed their victims with aluminium baseball bats. The beatings were so savage that one of the victims, a woman believed to be about 22, has still not been identified.

Ben Johnson, the sheriff in Volusia county where the murders took place, said the level of violence was indescribable. "This was the worst thing I have seen in my career," he said.

The victims, four men and two women, were found on Friday morning in different rooms in a rented house in Deltona, about 25 miles north of Orlando. The house was said to have been drenched in blood.

Although all of the victims sustained knife wounds during the attack, autopsies concluded that it was the force of the baseball bats that caused all six deaths.

The bodies were discovered after one victim's colleague at a fast food restaurant called a friend and asked the person to visit the house because the co-worker had failed to turn up for work.

The suspects' leader, Troy Victorino, 27, is alleged to have recruited the three 18-year-olds, Robert Cannon, Jerone Hunter and Michael Salas, to seek revenge for the suspected theft of his property. Police said the three younger men had all confessed to taking part in the deadly spree. All four have been charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary.

The five victims identified so far are Michelle Ann Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Robert "Tito" Gonzalez, 28; Francisco Ayo Roman, 30; and Jonathan Gleason, 18.

Mr Victorino had recently become involved in a feud with one of the victims, whom he blamed for the theft of his property. His clothes and games console were supposedly stolen while he spent three days in prison for assault in July. Police said he was overheard vowing to get revenge.

"These cruel murders have brought senseless and unspeakable tragedy to six innocent families," Mr Johnson said.

The killings were the worst in the state since 1990 when a man whose car was repossessed shot eight people in a Jacksonville loan office before turning the gun on himself.