Indiana ? Authorities asked for the public’s help Thursday finding a disheveled gunman who fatally shot a man and wounded two others in rural parts of Illinois and Indiana.

Investigators said the assailant approached his victims with strange questions, asking one man about honeybees and another about construction material, then pulled out a gun.

Sheriff Roy Dominguez said the shootings appeared to be random.

“We don’t know what might have precipitated this rampage,” he said.

Police had not received any reports about the gunman since Tuesday, when he killed a 45-year-old man near Beecher, Ill., about 35 miles south of Chicago, then wounded another man in the same area. He later shot a 64-year-old farmer near Lowell, Ind., about 10 miles east of Beecher.