Gunman attacks seven people in three states, then kills self

[Liberal_in_LA]

Gunman attacks seven people in three states, then kills self

(Reuters) - A West Virginia man on a tri-state killing spree gunned down six people and ran over a seventh with his car before committing suicide, police said on Wednesday.

Five of the seven attacked have died, police said, and the alleged shooter, Shayne Riggleman, 22, of Morgantown, shot and killed himself after getting pulled over by police in Kentucky.

West Virginia State Police said the bloody trail began in Morgantown on Monday, when they were called to a home and found five bodies with lethal shotgun wounds.

They said Riggleman, driving a vehicle stolen from one of the victims, then traveled to Fairchance, Pennsylvania, to meet a female friend.

On Pennsylvania's Interstate 79, Riggleman struck another car and ran over the elderly driver as she exited her vehicle, critically wounding her. The victim's name has not been released.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/07/us-shooting-westvirginia-idUSTRE7866RD20110907

[Ian David]

1. AP: Friend says jealousy fueled WVa rampage

AP: Friend says jealousy fueled WVa rampage

Long before the bloodbath that left five dead in a rural West Virginia home, the suspected 22-year-old gunman visited nursing homes and tried to cheer up patients. In his own eyes, Shayne Riggleman was outgoing, a friend to both strangers and animals.

By the end of the rampage that left two others injured miles away, Riggleman took his own life along a Kentucky roadside Monday, police on his tail. It ended more than three years of run-ins with the law.

<snip>

As for Riggleman's friends, they created a Facebook tribute page to him and struggled to reconcile the violence with the man they knew who wrote on his own page, "I want to accomplish something great in life. I want to help people."

"I just want people to know that he wasn't a monster," said Amber Faulknier, 24, who went to Morgantown High School with Riggleman. "... Something had to have happened to make him snap."

More:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/07/national/a133009D93.DTL

He had mental health problems, a long string of arrests and some jail time. How did he get gun?

[ChandlerJr]

5. How did he get gun?

Maybe the same way he got the car. Just a WAG.

[Rhythm]

2. Local paper had clearer picture of this tragedy...

The ex-girlfriend of the shooter was able to fill in the missing pieces of this mess.
She was the one the shooter went to see after he'd killed 5 people here just outside Morgantown (people the ex-g/f had been living with off and on since their breakup). Riggleman showed up at the girl's father's house (where she was house/pet-sitting) driving an SUV that belonged to one of the victims, and tried to entice the girl to go for a ride with him. When she refused and he left, she called police, because his driving that vehicle was beyond suspicious. The cops went to the house where the owner of the SUV lived, and found the victims all shot.

This was a disturbed guy who did all of this to punish her for breaking up with him several months ago. According to friends, he was also apparently bipolar, and off his prescribed meds.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. sad story. Thanks for the details.

[Beaverhausen]

4. Ah, I had a feeling meds were involved

tragic all around