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 own life in a house-to-house shooting rampage that wiped out a swath of 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.