SEVEN BODIES WERE found in the US state of Oklahoma yesterday during a police search for two missing teenagers, US media reported.

The victims were not identified and authorities did not say whether they included the missing 14-year-old and 16-year-old girls, who were said to have been seen with a convicted sex offender, The New York Times reported.

But authorities had called off their search for the teens after the bodies were found in the city of Henryetta, Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice told the newspaper.

“We believe to have found everything that we were seeking this morning,” Rice said, adding that the case was being investigated as a homicide.

The Tulsa World reported Rice as saying officials believed two of the seven bodies found were those of the missing girls.

The bodies were found on a property where registered sex offender and convicted rapist Jesse L. McFadden resided, according to the newspaper.

The state highway patrol had issued a missing persons notice earlier Monday saying the two girls were last seen at 1:22 am (06:22 GMT) in Henryetta and were both possibly traveling in a white Chevrolet Avalanche with McFadden, 39.

He was due to go on trial Monday in Muskogee County on several charges, including “child pornography and soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor using technology,” the Times reported.

A warrant for his arrest was issued after McFadden failed to appear in court on Monday morning.

 – © AFP 2023