The bodies were, in the words of an Army officer, “shockingly mutilated’ and one of the victims had their tongue torn out while another had both hands cut off.

They were identified by plastic name tags as: Martine Smallworth, 38, of Clearwater, Florida, LeRoy Dufarge, 45, also of Clearwater, and Janu Radzek, 29, from Coral Gables, Florida.

Found with the badly decomposing and mutilated bodies were expensive leather luggage, apparently looted from Saks Fifth Avenue’s New Orleans store and containing very expensive women’s clothing, jewelry, several boxes of Davidoff cigars, three Rolex watches and nearly $3 thousand in small bills.

A so-called manifesto was also found, tied to the feet of one of the victims that called for violence against President Bush and the former head of FEMA, Brown.

Because of what was termed its “inflammatory nature” of this document, its contents were not released .

Apartment house residents claimed that they had “heard and seen nothing” although it appeared that the three had been killed where they were found.

There are growing rumors in military and civilian circles here that FEMA personnel have been involved in shipping large amounts of emergency food rations, allegedly for resale, out of the area in official trucks at the height of the recovery efforts.