Eight shot dead in Mississippi rampage

A MAN who got into an argument with his estranged wife over their children was arrested after a shooting rampage in rural Mississippi that left eight people dead, including a sheriff ’s deputy.

“I ain’t fit to live, not after what I done,” a handcuffed Willie Corey Godbolt, 35, told The Clarion-ledger.

The shootings took place at three homes on Saturday night – two in Brookhaven and one in Bogue Chitto – about 70 miles south of Jackson. The dead included two boys, while Mr Godbolt had a gunshot wound.

A Bureau of Investigation spokesman said charges had yet to be filed and it was too soon to confirm the motive.

However, Godbolt told the newspaper as he sat with his hands cuffed that he had been talking with his wife and in-laws when somebody called the police.

“I was having a conversation with her stepdaddy and her mama and her, my wife, about me taking my children home,” he said. “Somebody called the officer, people that didn’t even live at the house. That’s what they do. They intervene.”

“They cost him his life,” he said, apparently referring to the deputy. “I’m sorry.”

The stepfather-in-law, Vincent Mitchell, said Godbolt’s wife and their two children had been staying at his Bogue Chitto home for about three weeks after she left her husband. After the deputy arrived, Godbolt looked as if he was about to leave, then pulled a gun and opened fire, he said.