City News (Link) (March 11, 2009)
As authorities in Germany struggle to cope with a senseless slaying at a local school, officials in the U.S. are dealing with the aftermath of a mass murder of their own.
It now appears a long simmering anger and need for revenge may have triggered a deadly shooting that left ten people dead in a small Alabama town.
Investigators hunting for clues into the actions of Michael McLendon have come across a "revenge list" the killer kept, outlining who he planned to murder.
The deadly drama happened Tuesday in and around the small town of Samson, Alabama near the Florida border, when the 28-year-old went on a rampage, starting a fire at his mother's home while she was still inside, gunning down four relatives in cold blood as they stood on a porch and picking off a number of strangers at random, leaving ten victims behind.
He left his mother's home, grabbed an automatic weapon, got into his car and drove about 20 kilometres to a relative's house, where he fatally shot four members of his own family, along with a neighbour and an 18-month-old child.
The latter pair was visiting next door and turned out to be the wife and infant daughter of one of the police officers who was on duty at the time the spree began.
"I called a friend and he come and checked on my family and he told me to get home and I came home and found my wife and my daughter had been killed," laments a subdued Josh Myers, a Geneva County Sheriff's deputy.
But the gunman's rage was far from spent. He then got back into his vehicle and started randomly spraying bullets from the window as he drove, killing three complete strangers. One woman was hit by gunshots coming out of a gas station. Another was driving in his car when the fatal projectiles struck him.
And in what one official calls a "cowardly act," McLendon took accurate and deadly aim at a man who was trying to run away, shooting him in the back.
He then drove to a local Wal-Mart, spraying more bullets at shoppers, but somehow missing them all.
His final trip took him to his former place of employment where he began shooting it out with officers, wounding the police chief. He eventually ran inside the plant and the tragedy ended the way many spree killings do - with the gunman turning the weapon on himself.
According to one local official, the gunman's list of names he wanted to murder included those who had "done him wrong."
Among the other locations on the hit list: the plant where his mother used to work. Authorities have now determined that McLendon did, in fact, kill his mom, before setting her home on fire. That brings the total number of victims to ten. She worked at a local chicken-making facility but had been recently laid off.
Officials have also revealed that McLendon had a troubled work history. He was employed at a different food plant but abruptly quit last week. And he was previously with the metal plant where the shooting rampage ended, but was forced to resign in 2003.
Authorities may never be able to explain why he went after complete strangers, who would not have been included on his lethal list.
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