Gunman who shot US Congressman had a hit list

The distraught wife of the U.S. man who shot a Republican congressman and four others at a baseball field told media "I can't believe he did this".

The list on James Hodgkinson's notepad had the names of three GOP congressmen who are all members of the House Freedom Caucus - Reps. Investigators have not determined the objective of the list and they are still trying to determine its meaning.

Investigators say Hodgkinson opened fire on a group of Republican Congress members who were practicing for a charity baseball game early Wednesday morning. High-ranking Congressman Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, was seriously injured and remains hospitalized.

Thursday afternoon Hodgkinson's wife of thirty years said her husband sold nearly everything and left for Washington to work with people to help change the tax brackets. "I can't wrap my head around it, okay?" But when his wife was specifically asked if politics "consumed" him, she refused to say. "There's nothing I could do about it". Her daughter and a 2-year-old grandchild had moved in with the Hodgkinsons before that, she said, and her husband may have left because he wanted "a break from it". The suspect, James Hodgkinson, was killed when officers returned fire. Matt Mika, director of government relations for Tysons Foods, was shot twice in the chest. He died yesterday from gunshot wounds sustained when law enforcement officers engaged him in a shootout at the scene.

James Hodgkinson sold all of his belongings before going to Washington, according to his wife.

According to the Daily Beast, a police report from the daughter's friend, Aimee Moreland, said the adopted daughter hated living with Hodkinson and tried to escape countless times.

Half a dozen patrons gathered at the tavern Thursday afternoon for the $1 taco special and to shoot pool said Hodgkinson didn't hang out there and wasn't known to them.

The YMCA said that Hodgkinson had canceled his membership on Tuesday, and said he was moving.

On Friday's St. Louis on the Air, we went Behind the Headlines and the headlines this week reached all the way from Alexandria, Virginia, to Belleville, Illinois. They checked his laptop, cell phone and a camera and found there that indicated he had been scouting potential targets. His social media pages were filled with angry rants about those taxes, Republicans, and specifically President Donald Trump, whom he called "a traitor".