Seven bodies found in duplex
Seven people were found dead Sunday in a duplex in northeast Missouri, and police were waiting for autopsies to determine whether foul play was involved.
Police Chief Jim Hughes confirmed the deaths but would not discuss a suspected cause or release details about the victims. Their identities had not been released, pending notification of relatives.
Hughes said a coroner would conduct autopsies today in hopes of pinpointing the time and cause of the deaths.
Paramedics discovered the bodies around 2:30 p.m. Sunday after police received a 911 call reporting “a number of unresponsive individuals … and a strange odor” inside the home, Hughes said.
KANSAS CITY, Mo.
Relatives: gunman had been depressed
A man who shot six people to death, including his longtime girlfriend and four of their children, before fatally shooting himself had been depressed and acting irrationally for weeks, police said Sunday.
Police identified the shooter as Hersel M. Isadore, 35. He fatally shot Alisandria G. Davis, 35, who witnesses said was his cousin; his longtime girlfriend, Shanika King, 32; and four of their children on Saturday, authorities said.
Police did not go into further detail about Isadore’s behavior. But relatives said he had been acting depressed and could be controlling with King, with whom he had been friends since she was 13 and he was 16.
King’s aunt, Janna Walker, said Isadore called King’s mother and told her, “I’m tired of being picked on and I just shot everybody in the house.”
MEXICO CITY
Soldiers arrest drug cartel leader
Mexican soldiers have captured a suspected drug cartel boss in the most significant arrest since President Felipe Calderon sent thousands of troops to restore order in a western state terrorized by drug gangs, the military said Sunday.
Elias Valencia, a suspected head of the Valencia cartel, was arrested along with four other people Friday at a mountain ranch near the town of Aguililla in Michoacan state, said Gen. Cornelio Casio.
Officials blame a recent wave of killings and beheadings on a turf war between the Valencia and Gulf cartels.
JAKARTA, Indonesia
Morning quake kills four people
A moderate earthquake killed at least four people and damaged scores of buildings early today on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, which is still recovering from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, witnesses and seismologists said.
The 5.5-magnitude tremor was felt across the western and northern parts of the island.
The quake struck just before dawn and was centered about 670 miles northwest of the capital of Jakarta, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.
It was followed by a series of aftershocks.