New Hill, N.C. — Four Wake County high school students were charged with murder Wednesday in connection with a body found the night before in the New Hill community.

Allegra Rose Dahlquist, 17, of 601 Walcott Way, Cary; Ryan Patrick Hare, 18; of 100 Walnut Hill Court, Apex; Aadil Shahid Khan, 17, of 901 Bristol Blue St., Apex; and Drew Logan Shaw, 16, of 107 Woolard Way, Apex, each face one count of murder.

Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said deputies found the body Tuesday night at a home at 4221 Olive Branch Lane after receiving a tip from Apex police. According to Wake County real estate records, the property where the body was found belongs to members of Dahlquist's family.

Arrest warrants said the homicide occurred Nov. 30, and they list the victim as John Doe.

Authorities have been unable to identify the victim or to determine the person's age or gender. The body was transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill for an autopsy.

"Everything we're doing, we're in the first stages, and I don't want to say where the body was found or anything else, right now," Harrison said.

Slaying linked to missing teen?

Investigators say they are looking at whether the slaying could be connected to a case involving missing Apex High School student Matthew Josiah Silliman, 18.

Silliman's parents reported him missing Nov. 26, and he is the subject of a Silver Alert – a statewide system that notifies the public about missing endangered adults who suffer from a mental cognitive impairment.

His parents said they did receive a visit Wednesday morning from law enforcement officers who informed them about the crime scene. They declined to comment further.

Classmates said Silliman had gone through some changes lately and that he seemed angry. On the social networking Web site Facebook, he details a difficult time he was going through recently.

"If I saw him in the halls, he wouldn't say much, as if he didn't want anyone's help," said Chris Lassiter.

Who are the suspects?

Authorities have not released much information about the suspects, but Wake County Public Schools spokesman Michael Evans said Dahlquist and Khan are seniors at Apex High School, and Shaw is a sophomore at Panther Creek. Hare, he said, withdrew from Panther Creek in February.

The networking Web site MySpace provides a glimpse of who they might be.

On Shaw's MySpace page Wednesday afternoon was a photo with the word "psychopathic" listed multiple times. He describes his friends as "utterly awesome."

Hare's MySpace page depicted a nuclear explosion with the following phrase prominently displayed: "Can imagine a world of love, peace and no wars. Then I imagine myself attacking that place, because they would never expect it."

On Dahlquist's MySpace page, she described her mood as "unsure," and Khan's page featured anarchist symbols and the phrase: "You are 80 percent evil."

Court records show at least one suspect was the focus of a weapons investigation earlier this year.

According to a March 2008 search warrant, Apex police seized an assault rifle, ammunition and a computer hard drive from Hare's home after receiving a report that he allegedly shot a paintball gun at a bus while it was in motion and allegedly made statements about blowing up a school bus

He faced charges, but they were dismissed.

Meanwhile, classmates expressed shock and sadness Wednesday afternoon on learning that two of their classmates had been charged.

Cindy Young, whose daughter is a senior at Panther Creek High School, said her daughter was relieved that the students there were no longer on campus.

"It's kind of scary to know what kind of people [are] in our school and what they would do to a person," said Libby Brzezinski, a student at Apex High.