Gary and Kathy Earhart gathered with friends and family at their Plano, Tex. home Friday night, devastated parents trying to come to grips with the brutal, high-profile murder of their daughter, Amanda Jo Earhart-Savell.
With hushed voices, they recalled how Amanda, 30, was a gifted athlete and tennis star from an early age, who graduated from Texas Tech on a full tennis scholarship and who had built a successful career as a fitness industry athlete.
"Just a good person," Kathy Earhart said Friday night.
On Thursday morning, police found their daughter shot to death in the Plano home of convicted steroid dealer David Jacobs, who the Dallas County medical examiner said Friday committed suicide by firing bullets from a 40-caliber pistol into his abdomen and head. He is believed to have first turned the gun on Amanda, although authorities had not yet officially ruled on the cause of Earhart-Savell's death Friday night. Dallas television station WFAA reported, however, that the Plano police recovered 146 vials of steroids, 10 syringes, scales, bags with steroids and marijuana, several computers, a .22-caliber semiautomatic gun and ammunition from Jacobs’s home. The police also reportedly found 10 expended .40-caliber bullet casings, 6 expended bullet slugs and a bullet fragment. Jacobs had told authorities and reporters that he hadn't used steroids since April of 2007.
