Man Kills Son, Neighbors in Serbia Mass Shooting

60-year-old went on pre-dawn house-to-house rampage
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 9, 2013 4:23 AM CDT
13 Killed in Serbia Mass Shooting
Police tape is seen on the road near a house in the village of Velika Ivanca, Serbia this morning.   (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

A 60-year-old veteran gunned down 13 people in Serbia, including a baby, in a pre-dawn house-to-house rampage today before trying to kill himself and his wife, in what RT is calling Serbia's "worst peacetime shooting." The man, identified as Ljubisa Bogdanovic, used a handgun in the shooting spree at five houses in Velika Ivanca, a village 30 miles southeast of Belgrade. Residents of the village said he first killed his son before leaving the house and then began shooting his neighbors, some of whom were still asleep.

"He knocked on the doors and as they were opened he just fired a shot," said one. Reuters reports that his mother was among the dead. The man and his wife were both severely injured by the shootings; officials say the motive is unclear. The suspect had lost his job last year and fought as a Serb volunteer soldier in the war in Croatia in 1992, the police chief said. Villagers said Bogdanovic fought in Vukovar, the eastern Croatian town that was destroyed in a massive Serbian-led army offensive, the scene of the worst bloodshed during Croatia's 1991-95 war for independence. (More Serbia stories.)

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