SAMSON, Ala. — The gunman who killed 10 people and committed suicide in a rampage across the Alabama countryside had struggled to keep a job and left behind a list of employers and co-workers he believed had wronged him, authorities said Wednesday.
The list, found in Michael McLendon’s home, included a metals plant that had forced him to resign years ago. Also on the list were a sausage factory where he suddenly quit work last week and a poultry plant that had suspended his mother, said District Attorney Gary McAliley.
McAliley told The Dothan Eagle that the list also included people at the sausage factory who had complained about McLendon for such things as not wearing earplugs and slicing the meat too thin.
“We found a list of people he worked with, people who had done him wrong,” the district attorney said outside the charred house where the rampage began.
But investigators offered no immediate explanation for why he targeted relatives and others who weren’t on the list as he fired more than 200 rounds in a roughly 20-mile trail of carnage across two counties near the Florida state line Tuesday.
In the span of about an hour, McLendon, 28, set the home he shared with his mother on fire, killed five relatives and five bystanders, and committed suicide in a standoff at the metals plant.
“The community’s just in disbelief, just how this could happen in our small town,” said state Sen. Harri Anne Smith, from the nearby town of Slocumb. “This was 20-something miles of terror.”
It was not clear how long McLendon had been planning the attack, but authorities said he armed himself with four guns — two assault rifles with high-capacity magazines taped together, a shotgun and a .38-caliber pistol — and may have planned a bigger massacre than he had time to carry out.
“I’m convinced he went over there to kill more people. He was heavily armed,” said Sheriff Dave Sutton.
Among the dead were some of the people who might have helped explain what set off McLendon — his grandmother, his mother, an uncle and two cousins.
The rampage started about 3:30 p.m. at McLendon’s mother’s home. Authorities said he put her on an L-shaped couch, piled stuff on top of her and set her ablaze. Before he left, he also shot four dogs. Investigators did not immediately say whether the woman was dead or alive when the fire was set.
McLendon then drove a dozen miles and gunned down three other relatives and two others on a porch and shot his grandmother at a house next door. McLendon shot three more people at random as he drove toward the metals plant, firing from his car.
At the metals plant, McLendon got out of his car and fired at police with a rifle, wounding Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey. Then he walked inside and killed himself.
The victims included the wife and 18-month-old daughter of Deputy Josh Myers, who was sent to chase McLendon. Myers did not know at the time that his wife and daughter were among those killed on the porch of McLendon’s relatives.
