Reply #12: However, she said Byrd "always dealt with shady characters."

[FarCenter]

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31980213/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Here's what is clear so far: Known around Pensacola as "Bud," Byrd Billings spent his early years in Mississippi and Tennessee. He owned a car dealership in Mississippi in the 1980s, and incorporated a boat company in 1976. The corporation was dissolved in the 1980s.

In divorce records from the end of his second marriage, in 1993, Billings reported a net worth of just $1,400, including total cash assets of $100 and a net monthly income of $1,190. Four months after the divorce, Melanie became his third wife.

They were living in a $700,000 home — opulent by Pensacola standards — and associates say they employed several people to care for the children. But how they got there is unclear.

Byrd's background also includes a strange criminal case. In 1990, he and his second wife, Cindy Reeve, pleaded nolo contendere — which means they did not admit guilt but agreed to a punishment — to charges they doctored birth records and tried to obtain a newborn for $2,100. They both received two years probation which was later amended to a year.

Reached by The Associated Press, Reeve said she wanted to be left alone and the adoption "got blowed out of proportion."

However, she said Byrd "always dealt with shady characters."