A rampaging gunman claimed the lives of six people, including his ex-wife, in the small Mississippi town of Arkabutla before sheriff’s deputies arrested him.

The shooting occurred in the rural hamlet of less than 300 people in  northern Mississippi, about 60 kilomteres south of Memphis.

The gunman, identified as Richard Dale Crum, 51, was charged with first-degree murder, Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance told reporters.

Investigators have yet to ascertain a motive, but Lance said they would start by examining the suspect’s troubled relationship with his ex-wife.

Authorities first received a call about a shooting at a gas station convenience store, and before deputies arrived they received another call about a second shooting at a nearby home, Lance said.

One man was shot dead at the store. A woman, later determined to be Crum’s ex-wife, was found dead at the home, Lance said.

Deputies tracked down the suspect in the driveway of another home and arrested him without a struggle.

That turned out to be Crum’s home, where deputies found four more bodies. Two were behind the home and two more in the roadway, one in a vehicle and the other on the road, Lance said.

The suspect may have had a family connection with the victims found behind the house. The two men on the roadway appeared to have been workers on a job at the site, Lance said.

“We don’t have a lot of violent crime here. This is shocking,” Lance said.

“I never dreamed that we would deal with something like that here.”

Deputies recovered a shotgun and two handguns from the suspect.

-AAP