Carolina Ledger

Girl found dead

in Chester County

LANCASTER, S.C. — A 12-year-old girl has been found dead in Chester County and sheriff’s deputies have charged three Lancaster residents with murder.

A man and two teenage boys are charged in the death of Jessica Mora, whose body was found Monday morning along a dead-end road.

The suspects are Alfonso Sanchez Caballero, 20, Mario Torres, 17, and a 14-year-old boy charged with murder as a juvenile. His name has not been released.

Bernie Culpepper, Chester County chief deputy, would not release a cause of death and said deputies are still investigating a motive.

Jessica’s sister, Viviana Mora, 23, said family members last saw about 10 p.m. Sunday after she received a phone call from someone claiming to be her cousin. Jessica told the caller he wasn’t her cousin and then paused and said, ‘‘No, I can’t,’’ before hanging up, family members said.

Aunt and nephew

found dead inside Westminster home

Anyone with information can call the Westminster Police Department at 864-647-3222.

WESTMINSTER, S.C. (AP) — A group of friends arrived to pick up a car at a home here but instead found an aunt and her nephew dead and the car missing, Police Chief Scott Bannister said.

Bannister said the group of three or four friends of the of the aunt and nephew showed up at the home about 4 p.m. Monday to pickup a dark blue Chevy Impala one of them owned. Police are looking for the car, a 2000 model with a South Carolina license tag 713 TBX.

Bannister said he doesn’t think the killings were a random act, but police have not determined a motive.

The victims were found in two separate rooms of the house.

They were Virginia Jones, 82, and Phillip Emanuel Kilpatrick, 31, of Westminster, Oconee County Coroner Karl Addis said Tuesday. Both had been shot to death, he said.

Autopsies were planned Tuesday, Addis said.

Nuclear plant shut

down after small steam leak

CHARLESTON, S.C. — A small steam leak forced Scana Corp. to shut down its nuclear power plant in Jenkinsville. The company said the leak was in a non-nuclear area of the V.C. Summer plant and presented no danger to workers or nearby residents.

‘‘We’re sort of piecing it back together,’’ said Roger Hannah, a regional spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission based in Atlanta. ‘‘It’s not an immediate safety issue, because they took the plant offline. But we want to make sure that we understand the situation completely before we make any assessment of whether it was a significant safety issue or not.’’

The NRC keeps inspectors at the facility full-time.

A plant worker discovered the leak shortly after midnight Sunday and Scana initiated a rapid shutdown of the facility.

Company spokeswoman Mary Green Brush said the company doesn’t know how long it will take to fix the leak, but expects the plant to running in a few days.

The Jenkinsville plant has had several such incidents in recent years.