[2/17/04]The search continued to widen Monday for a Yazoo County couple and their 4-year-old son, missing since Friday, from their home near Vaughn.

Family members of Michael Hargon, 27, Rebecca Hargon, 29, and James are offering a $25,000 reward for information.

Bovina resident Barbara Beasley said she and others have no idea what happened to her great-nephew and his family. “They were just a nice, sweet little couple,” Beasley said.

The family’s home had been converted from a grocery store that had been owned by Michael Hargon’s father, David Haywood Hargon. In April 1994, David Hargon was shot and killed during a robbery there.

Three men were charged in his death and remain in prison, but two are eligible for parole this spring.

Authorities were first called to the home Saturday after a family friend drove by the house and noticed the front door was open. Bullet holes and shell casings were reportedly found outside the home.

“There was blood on the front of the house. A lot of blood,” Beasley said.

Michael Hargon was last seen by his mother, Diana Hargon, between 8 and 8:30 p.m. Friday at her home. Diana Hargon said she also talked to her son’s wife on the telephone around 11:30 that night.

Diana Hargon says she fears the worst has happened to her son and his family.

“I’m just terrified,” she said.

There was no sign of forced entry at the house, and all the families’ cars were accounted for, authorities said.

The Yazoo County Sheriff’s Department and Mississippi Highway Patrol were handling the investigation.