From the Charlotte Observer of August 11, 2007
3 killed in Burke Co. shooting rampage
Neighbor allegedly goes from trailer to trailer before getting shot to death; 2 others injured in attacks
It wasn't unusual to hear gunshots fired in this neck of Connelly Springs.
Mostly it was just men shooting targets, though a wayward bullet recently cut through a neighbor's occupied trailer -- straight through.
On Thursday night, the shots turned deadly, and in the space of about 10 minutes three men lay dead, including the shooter. Two others were hurt.
Burke County sheriff's Lt. Becky Brendle said it happened like this:
Just after 10:30 p.m., a man walked up to the camper home of Frank James Clark and shot him dead with a rifle.
He then walked the 150 feet across a driveway and yard to the trailer home of William and Shirley Clark, Frank's brother and mother, where William Clark was working on an ATV in the sultry heat. The man asked him where Clark's mother was.
Clark knocked the man's rifle toward the ground and ran inside the trailer before the man started firing through the front door. Clark grabbed his mother and pulled her to the floor, where the two laid as bullets passed through the home and Clark called 911.
Next, the man left the trailer, walked about 15 yards through the woods behind the Clarks' and knocked on the trailer home of William Clark's other two brothers, Edward and Wayne. He was told to come inside.
When the man walked in he started shooting the rifle. He shot Edward at least twice, killing him, shot a woman and man who were visiting, and then started shooting at Wayne, who ran to a back bedroom.
Wayne grabbed a rifle from the bedroom and waited until he heard the man's gun click. He assumed it was empty, so he stepped into the hall and saw the man there with the rifle in one hand and a handgun in the other.
Wayne, he told investigators, shot the man through the heart.
When it was over, Frank James Clark, 46, Edward Leroy Clark, 47, and 61-year-old Charlie Clinard Jackson, a neighbor of the Clark brothers, were dead, and Janet Elizabeth Lefler and Scott Elliott Campbell hurt.
Investigators say Jackson was the shooter and that nobody seems to know why he did it.
Friday, gauze pad wrappers dotted the yard where it all started. The front door of William and Shirley Clark's trailer sported several bullet holes, while more holes pocked the back of the home where at least three of the bullets exited.
Empty beer cans and junk vehicles lay about and a hand-lettered sign on the front porch read, "No Jehovahs Witnesses."
Neighbor Glennie Lail said gunshots in the area had concerned neighbors with children in the past, including herself.
She said she knew Jackson, whose brother also lives nearby. Her son would sometimes go to the brother's house to play with his dogs but would come home when Jackson showed up because he was scared of him.
(More about Jackson)
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