A Missouri gunman who slaughtered seven people during a house-to-house killing spree Thursday night has been identified as a 36-year-old man and may have snapped after finding his ailing mother dead, authorities said.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said Joseph Jesse Aldridge killed himself, four of his cousins and three other victims after his mother died of suspected natural causes.
“We’re speculating that he came home and found her deceased and then for whatever reason went on a rampage and started killing people,” Texas County Coroner Tom Whittaker told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“This is just so strange. Right now, with the shooter dead, we don’t know. Is there something that sparked this? We’re still in the information-gathering stage,” he added.
His 74-year-old mother, Alice L. Aldridge, had been under a doctor’s care before her death, at least 24 hours before her body was found in Tyrone, Mo., Whittaker said.
Among those killed were two of Joseph Aldridge’s male cousins, who were slain alongside their wives, and a married couple and their adult son whose bodies were found in two different houses.
Those cousins have been identified as Garold Dee Aldridge, 52, and his wife Julie Ann Aldridge, 47, and Garold Aldridge’s brother Harold Wayne Aldridge, 50, and his wife Janell Arlisa Aldridge, 48.
Three other fatal shooting victims were identified to the Post-Dispatch as Carey and Valirea Shriver and Carey’s father, Darrell Shriver, who lived nearby.
Darrell Shriver’s wife, Martha Shriver, was wounded in the shooting at their home but survived.
The shooting spree started around 10:15 p.m. when Joseph Aldridge shot two people inside a Tyrone home, Texas County Sheriff James Sigman told the Houston Herald. A scared girl inside the house called 911 when she heard gunshots, but she was not hurt, investigators said.
“She was crying so hard, but I finally got out of her ‘My mom and dad have been shot,'” a neighbor told the Associated Press.
The gunman then went to three more homes in Tyrone, a rural community in south-central Missouri, where he killed five more people, officers said at a Friday press conference.
The shooter then drove to neighboring Shannon County and shot and killed himself in his car, deputies said.
While investigators searched Tyrone homes overnight, they found the body of his mother in a fifth home.
Neighbors described Aldridge as a recluse within an intimate community, and none knew him well.
“I just don’t know what he was doing,” said Bud Goodman, a Tyrone native who knew all of the victims.
Police said Aldridge had a minor criminal record.
Locals were especially shocked by the crime because they described Tyrone as a tiny, tight-knit town with little crime.
“Start locking your doors,” Sigman said. “The world’s changing.”
With News Wire Services
ON A MOBILE DEVICE? WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.
