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Missouri patrol says gunman kills 7, commits suicide

 
Police tape surrounds one of the crime scenes in Tyrone, Mo., Friday. Multiple people were shot to death and one was wounded in attacks in the small southeastern Missouri town, and the suspected gunman was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. [AP photo]
Police tape surrounds one of the crime scenes in Tyrone, Mo., Friday. Multiple people were shot to death and one was wounded in attacks in the small southeastern Missouri town, and the suspected gunman was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. [AP photo]
Published Feb. 28, 2015

TYRONE, Mo. — A man who authorities say may have been unhinged by the death of his ailing mother killed seven people and then took his life in a house-to-house shooting rampage in this tiny town in the Missouri Ozarks.

Joseph Jesse Aldridge, 36, carried out the killings with a .45-caliber handgun Thursday night or early Friday at four homes in Tyrone, the no-stoplight community of about 50 people where he lived with his mother, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

Aldridge was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before dawn in a running pickup truck on the middle of a highway 15 or 20 miles away.

The patrol said four of the dead — two couples — were cousins of Aldridge's, ranging in age from 47 to 52. The names of the rest of the dead — and an eighth victim who was wounded but expected to survive — were being withheld until relatives could be notified.

All the victims were adults and were gunned down within a few miles of one another.

Authorities said the motive was unclear and no suicide note was found. But as the investigation unfolded, they found Aldridge's 74-year-old mother, Alice Aldridge, dead, apparently of natural causes, on a couch at her home, officials said.

She had been under a doctor's care and appeared to have been dead at least 24 hours, Texas County Coroner Tom Whittaker told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Whittaker speculated that the son "came home and found her deceased and then for whatever reason went on a rampage and started killing people."

Around town, Aldridge was described as a recluse, and it was unclear what, if anything, he did for a living.

The killings traumatized Tryone, a town about 40 miles from the Arkansas line where many residents are related to one another, Sheriff James Sigman said. He said the last homicide in the county was a year and a half ago.