TEXAS COUNTY, Mo. — A man is believed to have killed seven people and injured another in a four-home shooting spree in southern Missouri before fatally shooting himself one county away, police said Friday morning.
A girl who fled one of the homes in the small community of Tyrone alerted police Thursday night, calling them from a neighbor’s house to say she’d heard gunshots, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Jeff Kinder told reporters.
After police found two bodies in the first residence, investigators found five more bodies and an injured person in three other Tyrone homes, Kinder said.
A suspect — a 36-year-old man — was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot in a vehicle in an adjacent county, police said.
No names were released. Police said they didn’t immediately know of a motive or how the victims were connected, if at all, to one another or the suspect.
Another body — that of an elderly woman who apparently died of natural causes — was found in a fifth residence during the investigation, according to Kinder. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the woman was connected to the case.
Tyrone is about 135 miles (84 kilometers) southwest of St. Louis. It is in Texas County, an area of about 26,000 residents
The suspect’s body was found in neighboring Shannon County, Kinder said.