A lone gunman killed six people including his ex-wife and stepfather Friday at multiple locations in a tiny rural community in northern Mississippi, a local sheriff said, leaving investigators searching for clues to what motivated the rampage.
Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, 52-year-old Richard Dale Crum opened fire about 11 a.m. and killed a man in the driver’s seat of a pickup parked outside a convenience store in Arkabutla, near the Tennessee state line, Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance said.
Deputies were at the crime scene when a second 911 call alerted authorities to another shooting a few miles away. After arriving at a home, they found a woman, whom the sheriff identified as Crum’s ex-wife, shot dead and her current husband wounded.
Lance said deputies caught up with Crum outside his own home and arrested him. Behind the residence they found two handymen slain by gunfire — one in the road, another in an SUV. Inside a neighboring home, they discovered the bodies of Crum’s stepfather and his stepfather’s sister.
“Everybody has crime, and from time to time we have violent crime, but certainly nothing of this magnitude,” Lance said in an interview. He added: “Without being able to say what triggered this, that’s the scary part.”
Crum was jailed without bond on a single charge of capital murder, and the sheriff said investigators were working to bring additional charges. It was not immediately known if Crum had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
The initial murder charge was for the killing of Chris Eugene Boyce, the 59-year-old man who was shot outside the store. Boyce’s brother was in the truck with him at the time and fled, according to the sheriff. Lance added that Crum chased the brother through a wooded area before he escaped unharmed.
The killings stunned residents of Arkabutla, home to 285 people about 50 kilometers south of Memphis, Tennessee. It’s the hometown of famed actor James Earl Jones, and nearby Arkabutla Lake is a popular fishing and recreational destination.
The shootings are the first mass killing in the United States since January 23, which saw the last of six in a three-week period, according to a database of The Associated Press and USA Today. It defines a mass killing as four or more people dead, not including the perpetrator.