Gunman kills mom, 9 others in US

Authorities were working yesterday to learn why a gunman set off on a rampage, killing 10 people across two rural Alabama counties. Grieving residents feared the answers could have been lost when he ended the terror by killing himself.

The shooting was believed to be the worst mass killing by a single gunman in Alabama's history. The gunman's mother, four other relatives and the wife and child of a local sheriff's deputy were among the dead.

"He cleaned his family out," Coffee County Coroner Robert Preachers said of the man's killing of family members. "We don't know what triggered it."