ELKLAND, Mo. -- Hours after a 14-year-old farm boy shot dead six members of his family disbelieving neighbors gathered to feed livestock and pick up children's toys from the front yard.
'What makes it so hard on this farm is there is no one left to help,' Evelyn Hampton said. 'Usually when a bunch of people get killed, someone survives, but he wiped out his whole family.'
Before dawn Friday, Kirk Buckner killed his three young brothers, his mother, father and his aunt before an uncle whom he had wounded stabbed him to death, Webster County authorities said.
'They were just a struggling farm family,' said neighbor Lloyd Hanna. 'They depended on Kirk a lot.'
'He carried a big load,' said Hampton, who blinked back tears. 'He was his mama's right-hand man.'
The Buckner dairy farm, tucked away in the rolling hills of southwest Missouri, was no showplace.
Kirk's father, Steve Buckner, said to be struggling financially, ran a feed store and an artificial insemination service for cows to help make ends meet, but the family's house showed the financial strain.
It did not have a working refrigerator but had a freezer.
The parents and four boys shared close quarters in the five-room house. The playpen in the living room where the youngest slept Friday was covered with blood-stained blankets and stuffed animals.
Clothes and papers, including school work, magazines and newspapers, covered the floor of the house. Dishes and pans with crusted food sat on countertops in the kitchen and tabletops in the living room.
Outside, nearly a dozen toy trucks littered the front yard.
About 300 people live in Elkland, a town about 20 miles northeast of Springfield. Its school closed about 20 years ago, but it has two churches and a convenience store.
As news of Kirk's actions circulated through the community, residents gathered to do chores on the farm and tried to figure out why the teenager went on a shooting rampage.
'We have no idea what could have happened,' said Marshfield police Officer Steve Adamson. 'They belonged to the same church as me. They were stable people.
'I've known them since they were babies, so it makes this case hard for me.'
Teresa Hampton, a senior at Marshfield and a friend of Kirk's, said he seemed fine when she saw him at school Thursday.
'He seemed happy, but my friend and I talked about it today, and we realized we hadn't seen him smile lately, so maybe we should have known.'
'When you hear something like this, you never expect it to be in your own town, and you don't expect it of a whole family,' Hanna said.
