SAMSON — The locals who drive the stretch of Highway 52 entering this town will know exactly why the new blue sign stands on the side of the road near Samson Plastic Pipe.

Michael McLendon was not obsessed with guns as much as he was with shooting, and when he rode through Samson on the afternoon of March 10, firing indiscriminantly at passers-by, he was smiling.

The four hearses lining Highway 52 in front of Samson’s First Baptist Church were enough to let even a remote stranger passing through know that something horrible had happened here. It is the sixth funeral since last Tuesday, and there will be one more.

Minister Joshua Copes was one of several people who spoke of how James Ivan Starling “Blue” spent his life. Copes repeatedly questioned whether people knew where they were going when they died.

No one might have guessed a portrait of 19-month-old Corrine Myers waving to the camera might have symbolized her final goodbye, which family did for both Corrine and her mother on Sunday after the two were gunned down by a man who killed eight others before himself on Tuesday.

Many of those showing support under umbrellas and a gazebo at Robert Fowler Memorial Park did not know any who had passed away.

Sonya Lolley Smith had just turned 43 last month. She was a bystander at a Samson fuel station on Tuesday when a man believed to be angry at his own life drove by and took hers.

The words of Murray Wise describe the pain felt by those who lost loved ones during Michael McLendon’s 24 miles of terror on Tuesday: “The 15 years I had with my son and the 18 years I had with Tracy were good, but I need more.“

In life, Bruce Maloy stayed out of the spotlight. In death, he became a hero.

Hopeless. That’s the tone of a letter Michael McLendon wrote describing his mother’s murder at his hands and his intent to end his own life, authorities said Thursday.

The maneuver Geneva Police Lt. Ricky Morgan made Tuesday that may have saved lives in Geneva almost cost his.

SAMSON — It was going to be a great weekend for the Wise family.

There are no easy lessons to be learned from this senseless violence.

KINSTON — Michael McLendon’s pee wee and little league baseball trophies stand on an end table in his burned home on County Road 474 in Kinston. Nailed to the wall above the trophies is his smiling high school graduation picture.

SAMSON—Family and neighbors were gathered on the front porch of Alford and Phyllis White’s house mid-afternoon Tuesday, most likely enjoying the warm afternoon sun when darkness came upon them.
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