Board Thread:Legitimate Canon Questions/@comment-71.53.184.8-20140729212412/@comment-4091815-20140729215120

They were not assassins.

We don't have a definitive answer for their status as werewolves.

There is evidence, the black goo leaking from their faces, that suggest they were werewolves poisoned with wolfsbane. But we don't know that for certain yet.