PIKE COUNTY, Ga. -- Authorities across north Georgia searched Thursday for two men suspected of killing and man and trying to kill his wife during a home invasion.

The wife is the daughter of the chairman of the Pike County commission.

The attack happened at the couple’s home on Caldwell Bridge Road near Concord Wednesday just before 4:30 p.m.

The sheriff did not release a lot of information about the case, but investigators said they set their sights on two men who may have known one of the victims.

Teresa Burousas played with her dog in the backyard of her home where less than 24 hours before, she was attacked and her husband, Jimmie “Buzz” Burousas, was killed.

She was too distraught to speak with Channel 2 Action News reporter Tom Jones Thursday, but her father, the chairman of the Pike County commission, said his daughter is lucky to be alive.

“Did your daughter say how badly they beat her,” asked Jones.

“Well, they choked her unconscious. I know that she was afraid to call 911 so she called me,” said father Doug Mangham.

Authorities said when they arrived on the scene they found Teresa Burousas outside her home. They found her husband dead inside of his car at the end of the driveway.

Sheriff’s office officials said they may have known their attackers.

“We feel like there was a connection between one of the individuals, maybe not the second,” said Pike County Sheriff Jimmy Thomas.

Thomas wouldn’t say which one of the victims may have known the two men who came to the Burousas home in, what appears to have been, a robbery. The sheriff also wouldn’t say how Buzz Burousas was killed and why he was left dead in the car.

“I want to hold that information right now until we get that autopsy report in our hands,” said Thomas.

The sheriff did say a gun was used during the attack.

Officials are looking for two men, one black and one white, who were last seen driving a white Pontiac Trans Am.

Buzz Burousas, 60, was the son of a former judge.