American Notes KENTUCKY

At 8:30 a.m. last Thursday, John Tingle, an employee at Louisville's Standard- Gravure Co., was startled to see a former co-worker. Joseph Wesbecker, 47, was carrying a duffel bag, an AK-47 rifle and a 9-mm handgun. "I told them I'd be back," Wesbecker growled at Tingle. "Back off and get out of the way." Tingle and several other workers quickly locked themselves in a bathroom, and Wesbecker took an elevator to the third-floor offices, looking for bosses or supervisors. Finding none, he worked his way downstairs, gunning down victims.

When he reached the press room, Wesbecker shot himself with the pistol and fell face down in a pool of blood. Survivors counting bodies found seven dead and 13 wounded, five critically -- the biggest toll by a mass killer since another nut with an AK-47 sprayed a Stockton, Calif., schoolyard and killed five children last January. Investigators said Wesbecker, a former pressman, had harbored a grudge against his ex-employers since going on total disability for mental illness. Said Joe White, a Standard-Gravure employee: "This guy's been talking about this for a year. He's paranoid, and he thought everyone was after him."