Ala. town stunned by gunman

updated 1:54 p.m. ET March 12, 2009

SAMSON, Ala. - Many residents of this quiet, close-knit farming community could hear the rapid crackling of automatic gunfire that killed nine of their neighbors. Others got frantic phone calls from friends or relatives.

But none of them knew yet that the heavily armed gunman grew up among them, playing Little League baseball, graduating from the local high school and working by their sides at local factories.

Those who knew 28-year-old Michael McLendon and even those who just remembered his name or face couldn't believe his rampage across two counties near the Florida border Tuesday that left him, five of his relatives and five bystanders dead.

Jessica Wise went to school with McLendon from kindergarten through graduation from Samson High School in 1999, a class that had about 50 students. She said he was quiet, nice and polite, didn't join other boys in pulling pranks and always had his shirt tucked in.

"You never saw him out at parties. He never got in trouble," Wise said.

Wise said McLendon played football and baseball in elementary and middle school, was a member of Future Farmers of America and talented in welding and woodworking. Wise said they fell out of touch after high school.

'Just a normal person'
Josh Smith played baseball with McLendon when they were young and later went to Samson High School with him, although he had not seen him since graduation.

"He was just a normal person," Smith said Wednesday. "He was very quiet and, as far as I know, never got in trouble."

McLendon began his killing spree a dozen miles from Samson in Kinston in Coffee County, where he burned down the home he shared with his mother, killing her. It ended about an hour later with him taking his own life after a shootout with police in nearby Geneva at Reliable Metals, where he worked until 2003.

In between, he gunned down four relatives and the wife and 18-month-old daughter of a local sheriff's deputy on a wide front porch that looks like so many others in Samson. He then turned his gun next door and killed his 74-year-old grandmother and sent panicked bystanders fleeing and ducking behind cars.

McLendon then drove off, spraying bullets through the town lined with old brick buildings, killing three more bystanders.

'God bless the victims'
The shootings cast a pall over an old town of 2,000 people that rarely changes. A black bow blew in the breeze in front of City Hall the day after. Across the street, workers replaced a window at Bradley True Value Hardware, which was hit in the hail of gunfire.

"God bless the victims and their families and God bless Samson," said a scrolling electric sign at Byrd's Nest Florist on Main Street.

"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 Slocomb. "This was 20-something miles of terror."

Darrell "Smitty" Smith, a corporal with the Sansom Police Department, served in Iraq with the Alabama National Guard. He was shocked by the carnage at the home of McLendon's relatives.

"Walking up on that porch and seeing that, it was much worse than anything I ever saw in Iraq because at least in Iraq you expect it, you are prepared for it and you stand a chance to protect yourself," Smith said.

"We are just a small town and we were not prepared for anything like this," he said.

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