SAMSON, ALA. — A gunman went on a rampage across two southern Alabama counties Tuesday, killing at least nine people and burning down his mother's house before shooting himself to death, authorities said.
The victims included family members and apparent strangers, the Associated Press reported.
Police were investigating shootings in four locations in three communities near the Florida border, all of which were thought to be the work of a single gunman named Michael McLendon.
Investigators declined to comment on a motive for the shootings, in which at least four other people were injured, including a child.
The bloodshed began when McLendon burned down the house in Kinston where he lived with his mother, Lisa McLendon, said Coffee County Coroner Robert Preachers.
Officials saw Lisa McLendon's body inside but couldn't get into the still-burning structure to determine the cause of death or whether she was her son's 10th victim.
McLendon then headed about 12 miles southeast to Samson, in Geneva County, where he shot and killed five people -- four adults and a child -- at a home, authorities said.
He killed one person each in two other homes, authorities said.
"He started in his mother's house," Preachers said. "Then he went to Samson and he killed his granny and granddaddy and aunt and uncle. He cleaned his family out."
Police said McLendon also shot at a state trooper's car, striking the vehicle seven times and wounding the trooper with broken glass.
Samson contractor Greg McCullough said he was pumping gas at a service station when the gunman opened fire, killing a woman and wounding McCullough in the shoulder.
"I first thought it was somebody playing," he said. The gunman fired a rifle, which appeared to jam, but "went back to firing" and drove off.
"I'm just in awe that something like this could take place, that someone could do such a thing. It's just shocking," McCullough told the Associated Press.
McLendon also killed someone at a Samson supply store, authorities said.
Police pursued McLendon to Reliable Metal Products just north of Geneva, about a dozen miles southeast of Samson, where he fired an estimated 30 rounds from a semiautomatic weapon, authorities said. One bullet hit Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey, who was saved by his bulletproof vest.
McLendon then went inside the plant and shot himself, authorities said.
