Eight people are dead and one person has been injured after a series of shootings in south-central Missouri.

Police made the discoveries on late Thursday at five different homes in or near the city of Tyrone.

Authorities believe that they found the body of the shooter in a parked car near one of the crime scenes.

The shooter's motive is not known at this time, and police are continuing to investigate.

"We're currently working six active scenes including the location in Shannon County where the suspect was found deceased," Sergeant Jeff Kinder of the Missouri State Highway Patrol told reporters on Friday morning.

Residents reported that police went door-to-door on Friday warning them to secure their homes.

Around 22:15 local time (4:15 GMT) on Thursday, officers from the Texas County Sheriff's Department responded to an emergency call from a girl claiming she heard gunshots in a home.

The girl fled to a neighbour's house to alert the authorities.

Upon inspection, officers found two people dead in the house.

As they continued searching, they found six additional victims who were killed and one that was injured spread across four other residences.

The body of the suspect, who has only been identified as a 36-year-old man from Tyrone, was discovered in car in nearby Shannon County. He had appeared to die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Officials have made multiple references to a woman found at one of the scenes "who appeared to have died from natural causes". However, they have not made clear her connection to the victims or he suspect.

Authorities took the injured victim to a nearby hospital, and are working to notify the deceased's next-of-kin. They say that they will not be identifying the victims until the notification process is complete.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31646977#

Horrific! ~

Sooz

Tragic. Such a small town, it will affect everyone.

I wonder if the woman who appeared to die of natural causes set this man off on a rampage? People have been known to snap like that. Perhaps she had been ill for a while too. Hard to understand this sort of thing.

I don't understand why you break news on this kind of horrific story beyond just a limited announcement until there are some facts to go with it ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
Official: So Many Bodies In Overnight Missouri Shootings 'You Lose Count'
By Ahiza Garcia Published February 27, 2015, 9:12 AM EST | Updated: February 27, 2015, 10:45 AM

Nine people were found dead overnight at multiple shooting locations in rural southern Missouri, a spokesperson for the Missouri State Highway Patrol said at a Friday morning press conference.

Sgt. Jeff Kinder said there were several confirmed crime scenes in the town of Tyrone, Mo. as well as a possible crime scene in a different county.

Kinder noted that the investigation was very preliminary and described the events that had unfurled after the Texas County (Missouri) Sheriff's Department received a call at about 10:15 p.m. on Thursday.

Kinder said a "juvenile female caller" reported hearing gun shots in her home. She "immediately fled to a neighbor's house," and when officers responded they found two dead at the home where the girl had called from.

Officers reportedly later found five more people who had been shot, as well as someone who had been wounded. The five bodies and one wounded person were found at three additional, separate residences, according to Kinder. Officers also found an elderly woman who had died of apparent natural causes.

Kinder confirmed that the 36-year-old suspect was also found dead from "an apparent gunshot wound" in a parked car in Shannon County.

During the conference Kinder had trouble recalling the total number of bodies that were found.

"There, there are -- six, seven, eight -- isn't that terrible?" Kinder said as he tried to recall the number of deceased. "You lose count. But uh, no there's actually nine total victims here in this case."

In total, Kinder said there were nine bodies, including the elderly woman and the suspected shooter, found in six separate locations, as well as one wounded person.

At the time of the news conference, Kinder said he would not release any of the victims' names. He also could not provide information on a possible motive for the shootings or any connection between the victims. He also said he could not provide information on the "juvenile female caller."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/missouri-sheriff-nine-killed-multiple-locations

Guns don't kill. People with guns kill. So, rather than preventing people from owning guns let's pass laws preventing guns from being owned by people. After all, guns don't have constitutional rights.

Rural Missouri? Four different residences?

So where was the "one good man with a gun" to "stop" the bad guy?

Hiding in a closet with our Prime Minister.

Here's the detail ~ I canNOT imagine this ~ ~ Sooz

In tiny Tyrone, Mo., 'half of the town got killed last night'
Kansas City Star | Kansas City Star | Laura Bauer, Donald Bradley and Glenn E. Rice |
10 hrs ago

TYRONE, Mo.—In this tiny community, just a smattering of homes along two blacktop roads, residents can't understand what made a man rip through homes of relatives and other neighbors on a killing rampage.

In all, authorities said, Joseph Jesse Aldridge, 36, gunned down seven people — four of them relatives — Thursday night in south-central Missouri before killing himself. Amid the mayhem, authorities also found Aldridge's mother, Alice L. Aldridge, 74, dead in her home from what appeared to be natural causes.

"The town is devastated," resident Nora Shriver said Friday afternoon as mounds of dirty snow from past storms covered the Texas County landscape, 95 miles east of Springfield. "Half of the town got killed last night."

She and her husband, John, counted three of the victims as family.

Many in Tyrone, where Aldridge family members make up much of the population, think that finding his mother dead on the couch may have sent the son over the edge.

"He just lost it," said one resident, who wanted to remain anonymous because few details about the family had been released by officials. "They think when she died, he went berserk and took it out on everybody else."

Authorities say Aldridge traveled to four homes in the dark of night, shooting each victim multiple times with a .45-caliber handgun. The first 911 call, at 10:15, came from a girl who had run to a neighbor's house barefoot through the snow and single-digit temperatures after she heard the gunshots that killed her parents.

Most victims were found on the floors of their bedrooms, said Texas County Coroner Tom Whittaker.

"One lady was still in the bed," Whittaker said. "You could tell she was trying to cover her face. She had pulled a pillow up."

Another man and woman appeared to have opened the door for Aldridge before they were shot.

The Missouri Highway Patrol identified four of the victims as Garold Dee Aldridge, 52, and his wife, Julie Ann Aldridge, 47; and Harold Wayne Aldridge, 50, and his wife, Janell Arlisa Aldridge, 48. The two men were cousins of Joseph.

Authorities did not release the names of the three remaining victims on Friday. But Nora and John Shriver identified them as John's cousin Darrell Shriver; Darrell's son, Carey Shriver; and Carey's wife, Valerie Shriver. Darrell's wife, Martha, was shot but survived. Family members said she had undergone surgery in a Springfield hospital.

The killings, according to authorities, occurred within about three miles. None of the homes had signs of forced entry.

Investigators were confident they had found all the victims.

"We checked a wide area, door to door," said Texas County Sheriff James Sigman. "We checked other family members in other areas."

When Whittaker first got the call, he was told he had two crime scenes, three fatalities and one survivor.

"I got to the first house and I had two bodies there," Whittaker said. "They said, 'You got another one off down (Highway) 137. I see a sheriff's deputy and he says, 'Well, I have this older lady down here and it appears to be a natural death.'"

Then, within Whittaker's sight, emergency lights flashed at another crime scene. And before long, he heard of yet another, with two more bodies.

"I'm thinking, 'What is this guy doing? What have people done to cause him to go around and start killing everybody?'"

Authorities fanned out along county roads and highways, searching for Aldridge. Officers found him before dawn Friday, slumped over in a GMC pickup in the middle of a highway in Shannon County, just to the east.

He had spent time in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2008 to possessing a firearm, a .22-caliber handgun, while being a user of marijuana, according to federal court records. He was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and released in February 2010.

Residents in the Tyrone community say he was quiet and kept to himself. He had lived with his mother for several years.

"I think the whole area is in shock right now," said Jack Watson, who lives in Solo, Mo., about five miles west of Tyrone. "It's going to affect it (the area) big time."

Texas County's previous homicide was about 1-1/2 years ago, Sigman said. And the deadliest crime Whittaker has worked in nearly 18 years as coroner was a double homicide.

"Crime like this in any community is pretty major," Sigman said. "It's not something you're used to seeing."

John Shriver had already gone to bed when the phone rang at 10:30 Thursday night. It was Martha.

"She was screaming," Shriver said. "She was panicked. She wanted Carey. ... And she couldn't get a hold of him."

John Shriver got dressed and went down to Carey Shriver's home. No answer at the door. He went in and found Carey and Valerie Shriver dead on their bedroom floor.

Where was Carey and Valerie's son? He hollered, but no answer.

Outside, John Shriver said he saw a state trooper and county deputy and flashed his lights at them. After telling them what he had found at his relatives' home, John Shriver led them back to the house.

"... They have a boy," Shriver told the officers. "But I couldn't find him."

In a bedroom, at the opposite side of the home as his parents' room, they found a 13-year-old boy in his bed.

One of the officers shined a flashlight, waking him.

He hadn't heard a thing.

John Shriver took the boy back to his home. The boy, who had been told by officers about his parents' deaths, was quiet along the way.

The boy's sister, a college student in Springfield, picked him up Friday morning.

Just after dawn Friday morning, on buses headed to schools inside the Houston R-1 School District, children spoke of little else.

Some of the district's 1,000 kids come from Tyrone. Others have family and friends who live in that area.

"We have a lot of scared and confused students here today trying to make sense of this," said Scott Dill, superintendent of the Houston district, who received a call Thursday night about the killings. "My kids are shaken up, every single one of them."

In nearby Summersville R-2 school district, administrators and teachers had been alerted to the shooting rampage. Some children in the district were related to those who died.

Those children, said Superintendent Merlyn Johnson, weren't at school Friday.

"We're ready for when these students come back," Johnson said.

Years ago, Tyrone was more of a town, with a store, even a small school and post office. Now it's mainly homes and fields, where cows graze off the main roads.

After Thursday evening, it will be known for a mass killing committed by a man who had grown up in the area and was related to many in his tiny community.

"It's kind of hard to figure out if him finding her deceased caused some problems with him, as far as getting a little bit crazy," said Whittaker, the county coroner. "We just won't know for sure. That's the horrible thing about this. With him deceased, there are going to be a lot of questions that go unanswered."

The effect, residents said, will be felt not only by people outside Tyrone and throughout Texas County, but across the region.

"If you're not related by blood, you are related by bonds of friendship," Dill said. "This is small town America. When we cry, we all cry together down here."

(The Star's Tony Rizzo contributed to this story.)

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/in-tiny-tyrone-mo-half-of-the-town-got-killed-last-night/ar-BBi4feW