Police: Alabama killer was depressed about job issues

SAMSON, Ala. (AP) — Police say a gunman who killed 10 people and then himself was depressed about job issues before he went on a shooting rampage across south Alabama.

Lt. Barry Tucker of the Alabama Bureau of Investigations said during a news conference Wednesday night that interviews with people who spoke to Michael McLendon in the days before the shooting indicated that he was depressed. But Tucker was careful to say that authorities do not believe the shooting was job-related.

Authorities think they have a general motive but would not release it. Tucker says McLendon left no specific indication of why he went on the rampage.

District Attorney Gary McAliley has said McLendon struggled to keep a job and left behind lists of employers and co-workers he believed had wronged him.

“We found a list of people he worked with, people who had done him wrong,” said McAliley in a brief interview outside the charred house where the rampage began.

The killings devastated rural communities in two counties near the Florida border. Though the list was one of several perplexing clues that emerged Wednesday about McLendon’s life, authorities couldn’t say what set him off.

And the people who might be able to explain — his mother, his grandmother, his uncle and two cousins — were among the victims. A witness said the latter four had no time to react when McLendon wordlessly and expressionlessly pulled his car up to a house where they were sitting and opened fire.

The rampage started around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and took only about an hour from start to finish. In that time, McLendon sprayed more than 200 rounds, authorities said.

First, McLendon set his mother’s house on fire and killed her, then drove 12 miles and opened fire on his uncle’s front porch, killing five people and his grandmother, who lived next door, authorities said. Then, he drove through town and fired seemingly at random, killing three more people. With police in pursuit, he ended up at the metals plant where he once worked, and shot himself after engaging in a shootout with law enforcement officers.

“He cleaned his family out,” Coffee County Coroner Robert Preachers said.

McLendon was briefly employed by the police department in Samson in 2003 and spent about a week and a half at the police academy, dropping out before he received firearms training, said Col. Chris Murphy, director of the Alabama Department of Public Safety.

More recently, he worked nearly two years at food manufacturer and distributor Kelley Foods in Elba, about 25 miles north of where he shot most of his victims.

The company didn’t specify what his position was but said in a statement that he was a “reliable team leader” who was well-liked but quit last March 4.