By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) – A $5,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of a 22-year-old man wanted in the shooting deaths of 9-year-old Alabama twins and their elderly babysitter.
Federal marshals authorized the reward in the case of Deandra Marquis Lee, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation said Friday.
Murder warrants were obtained Thursday, and law agencies said the suspect should be considered armed and dangerous.
The bodies of the twins, Jordan and Taylor Dejerinett, and 73-year-old Jack Mac Girdner were found Tuesday afternoon on a dirt road near Hayneville, southwest of Montgomery, state investigators said.
The children and Girdner, according to the bureau investigators, were last seen Sunday when the twins’ mother left them in the care of the babysitter.
When the twins’ mother returned later that night to pick them up from the suburban Montgomery home of the babysitter, the children and Girdner were missing, investigators said, along with Girdner’s car, a 1988 Mercedes-Benz.
Authorities did not release a possible motive in the killings, though they confirmed the three victims were shot.
State investigators also did not say what evidence connected Lee to the case.
Girdner’s car was found — with its doors removed — Thursday in Minter, they said.
Authorities said they had information that Lee was in and around the city of Selma.
Lee, according to state investigators, has a history of trouble with the law. In 2011, he was acquitted of murder in a 2008 shooting that prosecutors say was gang related.
Lee is currently out on bond following January 2012 charges in Dallas County that he assaulted a police officer and was in possession of gun with an altered ID number, state investigators said.
According to court records, Lee was also arrested on a third-degree robbery charge and released on $10,000 bond in Lowndes County in February 2012 for allegedly stealing a Honda Accord in 2011.
CNN’s Joe Sutton and Phil Gast contributed to this report.
