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ByJimSalter The Associated Press TYRONE, MO. Amanwho authorities say may have been unhinged by the death of his ailing mother went on a house-to-house shooting rampage in a small town in the Missouri Ozarks, killing seven peo- ple before taking his own life. Joseph Jesse Aldridge, 36, carried out the killings with a .45-caliber handgun Thursday night or early Friday at four homes in Tyrone, the no-stoplight town where he lived about 40 miles north of the Ar- kansas line, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said. Aldridge's body later was found before dawn Friday in a running pickup truck on the middle of a highway in a neighboring county, about 15 or 20 miles from Tyrone. No suicide note was found, authorities said. The patrol said four of the dead — two couples — were cousins of Aldridge's, ranging in age from 47 to 52. The names of three other victims and a person who was wounded but ex- pected to survive were be- ing withheld until relatives could be notified. All the victims were adults and were gunned down within a few miles of one another. Authorities said the motive remained un- clear. But as the inves- tigation unfolded, they found Aldridge's 74-year- old mother dead, appar- ently of natural causes, on a couch at the home she shared with her son, offi- cials said. She had been under a doctor's care and appeared to have been dead at least 24hours,Texas CountyCor- oner Tom Whittaker told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Whittaker speculated that the son "came home and found her deceased and then for whatever reason went on a rampage and started killing people." "This is a horrific trag- edy, and our hearts go out to the victims of these senseless acts and their families," Gov. Jay Nixon said. He said crisis coun- seling will be made avail- able to students and others. The sheriff's office learned of the attack when it got a call about 10:15 p.m. Thursday from a young woman who said she had fled to a neighbor's home after hearing gunshots in her house, Kinder said. The neighbor, who re- fused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the teenage girl was barefoot and clad only in a nightgown when she came running across a snow- covered field full of thick- ets that left her legs cut up. "She was crying so hard, but I finally got out of her 'My mom and dad have been shot,'" the neighbor said. When officers arrived at the girl's home, they found two people dead. Authorities later found five more people dead and one wounded in three other homes. MISSOURI 8 sh ot t o de at h, i nc lu di ng gunman, in rampage By Tom Coyne The Associated Press SOUTHBEND,IND. The Rev. Theodore Hesburgh trans- formed the University of Notre Dame into a school known almost as much for academics as for football, even if it meant challenging popes, presidents or legend- ary football coaches. And he did it while cham- pioning human rights around the globe, from civil rights close to home — he joinedhandswithMartinLu- ther King Jr. at a 1964 rally and opened campus doors to women — to supporting Third World development. The work took him far from campus, where the joke be- came that while God was ev- erywhere, Hesburgh was ev- erywhere but Notre Dame. But Hesburgh, who died lateThursdayatage97,spent enough time on campus dur- ing his 35 years at the helm to build Notre Dame into an academic power. He was fea- tured on the cover of Time magazine a decade into his tenure for an article describ- ing him as the most influen- tial figure in the reshaping of Catholic education, and he was awarded 150 hon- orary degrees. During his tenure, student enrollment spiked and the school's en- dowment grew from $9 mil- lion to $350 million. The charming and per- sonable priest found as much ease meeting with heads of state as he did with students. His aim was con- stant: Better people's lives. "I go back to an old Latin motto, opus justitiae pax: Peace is the work of justice," Hesburgh said in a 2001 in- terview. "We've known 20 percent of the people in the world have 80 percent of the goodies, which means the other 80 percent have to scrape by on 20 percent." Hesbugh died late Thurs- day night on the school's campus in South Bend. Hes- burgh had lost his sight and had been slowing down, yet he still celebrated Mass daily and showed up at his campus office every day un- til last week, said the Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame's current president. "We knew when he wasn't going to the office, that was a sign," Jenkins said. In a letter Friday to the student newspaper, Jimmy Carter recalled his 40-year friendship with Hesburgh, saying he devoted his life to serving humanity and tak- ing courageous stands. "Father Hesburgh has made the world a bet- ter place — for those of us whose lives he has touched directly and as an inspi- ration for generations to come," Carter wrote. Hesburgh's goal coming out of seminary was to be a Navy chaplain during World War II, but he was instead sent to Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., to pursue a doctorate. He then returned to Notre Dame, where he quickly rose to become head of the theology department, then executive vice president. He was named president in 1952, at age 35. His passion for civil rights earned him a spot as a founding member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commis- sion in 1957. President Rich- ard Nixon fired him from the commission in 1972, after Hesburgh famously challenged Nixon's record. "I said, 'I ended this job the way that I began 15 years ago — fired with en- thusiasm," Hesburgh re- called in 2007. It wasn't his only chal- lenge to authority. When the Vatican demanded con- formity to church dogma, Hesburgh insisted that Notre Dame remain an in- tellectual center for theo- logical debate. HUMAN RIGHTS CHAMPION Fo rm er N ot re D am e pr es id en t He sb ur gh d ie s PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. 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