Slayer of 14 Told of Bewilderment Before Suicide

The gunman who killed his mother and 13 others expressed bewilderment before committing suicide that he had been able to shoot so many people but felt incapable of turning the gun on himself, police said today.

The rampage Wednesday was the worst mass murder in modern British history. It left this market town of about 5,000 people in shock and raised national questions about whether Britain’s gun laws are strict enough.

Fourteen of the 15 people who were wounded remained in hospitals today, and two were reported in critical condition.

Michael Ryan, 27, had licenses to own three handguns and two rifles, Chief Constable Colin Smith said at a news conference.

‘Lucid . . . Reasonable’

Recounting the end of the bloody rampage, Smith said that police had cornered Ryan in an upper floor of John O’Gaunt School and that he seemed “lucid and reasonable” as they talked to him in the last moments before he killed himself.

“He expressed concern that he had shot his mother,” Smith said. “He expressed the view that it was strange he could shoot other people but he could not shoot himself. Shortly after that a shot was heard.”

Ryan was found dead with a gun in his hand when police entered the room seven hours after the shooting began.

The gunman was described by neighbors as a loner with a doting mother and a love of guns. Police said he left no note or any explanation for the massacre.

Paratroop Service Denied

There had been reports that Ryan was a former paratrooper, but the Parachute Regiment said in a statement that he never had been in that unit or any other in the armed services.

Residents today huddled along the main street, staring at newspaper headlines and talking about Ryan. In the midst of the rampage, he had donned combat clothes, went to the home he shared with his 60-year-old widowed mother, shot her to death and set fire to the house.

“It’s such a shock that such a thing can happen in a sleepy town like this,” said Michael Moon, who runs a newspaper store. “You hear about these things in America but you don’t expect them on your doorstep.”