The murders were a gang initiation. The weapon was a sword. The killer was a stalker. The killings are related to another recent one near Elizabethtown.

Three days after a family of three was found stabbed to death in their Manheim Township home, many rumors, innuendoes and theories about the murders are swirling through the community.

It's the result of people trying to make sense out of a senseless event, some said.

"People want answers," said Lancaster City Police Detective Bill Chalfant, who responded to one of the rumors today. "They want to know  something was done, and what the motive was, and what the reasons were.

"They can't understand it just for the act of violence that it is. Something has to be associated to it. It leaves us unsettled when there is not."

Tom and Lisa Haines and their 16-year-old son, Kevin, were found dead early Saturday morning in their Blossom Hill home, off the Lititz Pike.

The Haines' other child, Maggie, 20,  alerted police after being awakened by a scuffle. She went to her parents' bedroom, where her mother told her to go get help, police said Monday. The young woman fled to a neighbor's home and called 911.

The slaying of the members of the  quiet family has shaken the community. And investigators have been tight-lipped about aspects of the case, sealing a search warrant of the family's home at 85 Peach Lane.

Both of those factors have  contributed to rampant speculation across the backyard fence, in the hallways of Manheim Township High School and everywhere people gathered this week.

Here are some of the theories making the rounds:

• The murder weapon was a sword.

Manheim Township High School students buzzed about this possibility Monday but Lancaster County Coroner Dr. G. Gary Kirchner said today, "No sword."

Police said Monday at a press conference the murder weapon was a knife.

• The murder was done as a gang initiation or was gang activity that spilled over from the city into the suburbs.

"I would be extremely, extremely surprised if this had anything to do with a street gang level," said Chalfant, the city police's certified specialist in gangs.

Chalfant said he has never heard of a gang initiation where prospective members invaded a home and hurt or killed someone to prove their mettle.

He has heard of initiations that involved prospective members assaulting someone on the street, but never in Lancaster County.

More commonly, the prospective member has to endure their own assault, called a "beat-in" or "jump-in," by other members.

• The murder is somehow connected to the murder of Ray Diener, a 65-year-old man shot outside his West Donegal Township home two weeks ago. Northwest Regional Police are still investigating that murder.

The two cases do have some similarities.

The murders in both cases happened after dark.

The victims alerted a family member for help. Diener's wife saw two men standing outside her home after she heard her husband yelling.

The victims were well-liked. The motives remain a mystery.

But there are differences as well.

Diener was shot multiple times outside his home. The Haines family was stabbed inside their home.

Lancaster County District Attorney Donald Totaro said today, "At this point in time, we have no evidence to suggest these murders are connected."

• One of the Haines' family members was being stalked before the murders.

That's one of many other theories being floated in the community, some seemingly plausible, others not.

Were the murders the result of bullying taken to the extreme? Was a cult involved?

Are the murders connected to  other recent home invasions in the community?

Police are looking at every possible angle in the case, Totaro said. They continue to receive information from the public.

They are investigating every lead, he said.

"We encourage the public to call the police if they have any information they believe may be of relevance," he said.

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