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SAMSON, Alabama: Alabama investigators said they were closing in on a motive for the US state's deadliest-ever shooting, in which a man killed his mother, grandmother and eight others before taking his own life.
The Alabama Bureau of Investigation said there had been "very recent developments that we believe may direct us to a motive" for the grisly rampage, but ABI was quick to dismiss earlier reports that a hit list had been found in the house of the gunman, identified as Michael McLendon.
ABI "has in its possession all evidence collected from the scene of the first event", in which McLendon, 28, shot his mother in the head, set her body on fire and burned the house in which they both lived in the small town of Kinston.
"The evidence includes a phone list and a notebook, but there is no evidence that indicates a hit list of any kind," ABI said in a statement.
"It would be premature at this time to comment further in any detail."
Coffee County District Attorney Gary McAliley had been quoted as saying a list of employers or people who had done McLendon wrong was found in the home.
Wielding two assault rifles, a shotgun and a handgun, McLendon left a trail of dead and six wounded across three towns during Tuesday's shooting spree, which lasted about an hour and saw him discharge more than 200 rounds, police said.
After killing his mother, McLendon, who was briefly employed as a police officer in 2003, then drove to the nearby town of Samson, where he shot his uncle, two of his cousins, and the wife and baby daughter of local sheriff's deputy Josh Myers as they were on the uncle's front porch, police said.
He then walked next door and killed his 74-year-old grandmother Virginia White.
Just minutes later Myers took part in a shootout with the killer, not knowing his wife, Andrea, 31, and 18-month-old daughter, Corrine Gracy, had been slain.
"I never heard of him. Never met him. Never seen him before in my life," Myers told reporters on Wednesday, praising his wife as a "super mom".
"I cried so much yesterday, I don't have a tear left in me," he added. The couple's other daughter, three-month-old Ella, was wounded in the attack.
Police said the shooter then moved on, killing 24-year-old pedestrian James Starling before driving along Alabama route 52 and wreaking more carnage as he fired on cars and businesses seemingly at random.
He killed 43-year-old Sonja Smith at a service station, and shot dead Bruce Malloy, 51, who was driving on route 52.
Police pursued the gunman and a shootout ensued, with Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey shot and wounded in the shoulder.
The chase took them to the Reliable Metal Products factory just north of the town of Geneva, where more shots were fired before McLendon fled inside. Police said they found him dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Local media said McLendon had worked in the past at Reliable Metal, though it was unclear when or if he had been fired or laid off.
He worked most recently at a sausage factory, Kelley Foods of Alabama, which said McLendon was employed from July 2007 until he "voluntarily quit" last week.
The company described him as a "reliable team member" who "just did his job".
"People here would have never thought it would happen," company resource manager Erik Ennis told AFP.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley reacted to the bloodbath with "shock and disbelief". "It really is devastating to a community this size," he told reporters.
"This doesn't happen in small towns and all of a sudden, you begin to understand that you really do have the same problems in these towns (as) in other parts of the country."
Residents and other officials were bewildered by the rampage.
"None of this makes any sense to me," Samson Mayor Clay King told AFP. "These people were well known... it's like getting hit in the gut unexpectedly."
Resident Wayland Tharp of Samson, a town of about 2,000, worked with McLendon years ago at a local bakery.
"He used to be a very quiet, very reserved individual.... He wasn't someone who caused trouble, he'd get the job done and had a good attitude," Tharp told AFP.
The United States has been plagued by gun violence. In April 2007, a South Korean student killed 32 people and himself on his university at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, in the country's worst school shooting.
And in 1999, two pupils shot dead 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Denver, in a massacre which shocked the nation.
- AFP/so
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