A man who previously worked as a Walmart Santa Claus has been arrested after police found bodies of his son and daughter buried in his backyard.

Last Thursday, Georgia's Effingham County Sheriff’s deputies searched Elwyn Crocker’s home after receiving a tip that his 14-year-old daughter Mary Crocker was missing.

Deputies found two bodies buried “just inside the wood line,” according to the sheriff’s office. Effingham County Coroner David Exley told USA TODAY the bodies, found feet away from each other, were identified as Crocker's two children.

Mary hadn’t been seen since October 2018 and her brother Elwyn Jr. hadn’t been seen since November 2016, but police said an official missing child report wasn’t filed for either child. Elwyn Jr. would have been 16 years old this year.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is working to determine a cause of death, which could take up to 10 weeks, Exley said. It's also unclear when the children died.

When family members were originally questioned about Mary’s whereabouts, they gave conflicting information, and some said the girl had gone to live with her mother in South Carolina, the sheriff's office said in a news release. Then, father Elwyn Crocker gave information that led investigators to search the yard.

"I've been doing this 41 years and ... I almost broke down in tears," Sheriff Jimmy McDuffie said at a news conference. "It's that bad. I cannot understand how you do children like this. It's horrible."

Crocker, 49, as well as the children's step-mother Candice Crocker, 33, and their step-grandmother Kim Wright, 50, were arrested for concealing the death of another and cruelty to children in the first degree. Friday, Wright’s boyfriend, 55-year-old Roy Anthony Prater, was also arrested for the same charges.

Crocker had played Santa at Walmart store in Rincon until recently, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Crocker held a maintenance position at the store for a few years and had little interaction with customers. It's unclear what his position as Santa entailed.

"We’re devastated at this news," Tara Aston, a spokesperson for Walmart, said in a statement to USA TODAY. "After reviewing the circumstances, we terminated Mr. Crocker. We are shocked at what has been reported and will do whatever we can to assist law enforcement.”

The children's cause of death has not yet been released.

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