Murders in Church and Mission Center: Update Colorado
Dec 10th, 2007 | 11 responses
UPDATE 6:20 PM MST: It’s been determined that one man wounded five persons and murdered four persons at both churches which are about 60 miles apart. Matthew Murray, 24, a home-schooled son (one of two brothers) of a prominent Denver family did the shooting.
Murray was five years ago an ‘associate’ at the Missionary Training Center, but was found ‘healthwise’ unfit for assignment after the 12 week training for missionary work.
People close-in would not say what the ‘health’ issues were.
That Missionary Training Center was the shooter’s first target, before he traveled to the other church and unleashed more mayhem.
Today, the Director of the Missionary Training Center said Murray was believed to have been sending hate mail to the Center for some time.
Murray’s father is a neurologist and a prominent multiple-sclerosis researcher in Lone Tree, an upscale community at the southeast end of Denver.
See original story and links to security guard’s story here…
Here is a photo of the security guard who was on duty at the New Life Church when the gunman came into the church shooting.
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11 Responses to “Murders in Church and Mission Center: Update Colorado”
So what do we have……….still a bit too murky. a young man in his twenties, educated at home, apparently rejecting the faith he had been indoctrinated into as a boy. We hear there was a low burner issue in his rejection by the missionary school that kept his aggression simmering for years. Unclear why he was rejected. One wonders if he was schooled at home because he had problems (behaviorial, emotional, or academically) and one wonders if being schooled at home might lead to greater isolation and less exposure to peers.
We also don’t know where the guns came from, and it appears he was “loaded” (sic); a powerful rifle, two handguns and smoke grenades…….ready for battle to the death.
So far the family is presented as upscale and prominent, without known problems, but I suspect this will prove to not be true.
Lastly, this case, like so many of them, the perpetrator knows on some level he is crossing a line he cannot uncross, and while his hostility is directed outwardly, eventually, even if the security guard didn’t kill him, in all likelihood he would have killed himself at some point. He hates others but hates himself too, thereby, making him a victim too. Sadly.
No ring on her…hmmm…
Amazing. Until one has pulled the trigger it is inconceivable how hard doing that simple thing is.
She is to be commended. However the biggest question I have because I really havent been following this too much is WHY did they have armed guards at a missionary school??
After all, as the lefties say, nobody hates the religious.
Dear Somebody
The two murders at the Missionary school took place just after midnight as it turned Sunday. There was no
guard there.
THe New Life Church, about 60 miles south of the missionary school, heard about the shootings that same
Sunday morning, and decided it might be a good idea to up security.
The lady in the picture, apparently advised the church to beef up security, and was on duty when the shooter showed up at the New Life Church just as noon services were letting out.
The shooter shot three persons in the parking lot (two of them died; teenage sisters) and 1 person in the church before the security guard killed him.
Hope that clarifies.
dr.e
She wasn’t a security guard, which has a legal definition in most states, but a volunteer from the congregation. One of many they had and one of many that was armed and licensed to carry. Indeed the pastor referred to them as members of the church and not “mercenaries that we hire to walk around our campus to provide security”.
You know that statment really bothers me…………..
Dear Bones_708, I think I know what you mean. I believe from info given by the locals here (the church and the missionary school are nearby) this person has a background in law enforcement. It’s still a little uncertain, but I have a sense as ‘the media machine’ gears up, we will know more from her directly.
The thing is, ‘the circus’ of blame has already begun here locally. And this time the charges of what ’caused’ this tragedy are even more “out there” than what occured after Columbine masscre
dr.e
Dear dr.e,
Apart from the media circus and the ongoing grief and trauma suffered by all participants (active and passive), is their not space for an accurate understanding of what did happen, the steps that led up to the tragedy and the potential assignment of responsibility?
Does it all boil down to human failing, human tragedy, or are their things that reflect more than passing accident, human frailty?
The statistician might say that so many, a given percentage, will fall to mental illness, to swimming accidents, or to suicide by rope, by pill, by gun, by accident — though might seem callous.
What did they conclude in the end at Columbine?
What degree or shade of contribution did the school, the neighborhood, the community, the church, his parents, his friends, his siblings, classmates, teachers, counselors……..and anyone else that might have had contact with them.
“After all, as the lefties say, nobody hates the religious”
Do people who can snark like this in the face of this tragedy have no sense of decency at all, not evern a shred?
In this case, as has already been pointed out, the shooter was a fellow Christian.
Could we just put the ‘hatred’ theme away, at least during the mourning period.?
I am not a Christian, but my heart aches for the families and for the entire community of Christians involved.
It’s frightening to see that not even a tragedy, the last in a series of tragedies in our country can trump the urge to stick it to someone.
I had hoped the Phelps family was an extreme aberration, not a symptom of what ‘normal’ folks are these days.
dear spirasol: it’s a good question. And the answer is a book. But, this is what i’ve seen at critical incident sites: thoughtful understandings and insights into tragedies often do occur especially within the inner circle… meaning those most affected by the tragedy as eye-witness and first hand, although it takes time.
But, those personal and group gleanings are not always well publicized for several reasons… legal suits; media misapprehension; and repetition of errant information; analysis by persons who cannot see very far beneath the surface; congressional committees made up of persons not known for investigative skills but rather political skills; stretching of truth or falsifyng of truth for fear of incriminaton or retribution. Desire not to look back; media hogs who are over-wiling to speak to the press and who fabricate what they know and what they witnessed. Peope who want to cover their failings by lcontrcuting themselves to seem like heroes, and thereby distorting data. It goes on.
There are many reasons why critical underlayments and causes of certain kinds of tragedies never quite seem to make it into mainstream consciousness.
My experience at Columbine was so different in the first month… from that of the second month… when so, so many began lawyering up. It was an astonishing difference. A good deal of money was at stake… to be made, it seems. To be lost. The quality of introspection changed. Broadcasting of what each witness knows about causation goes way down when people are fearful, won’t, or are not allowed, to speak to one another.
The only way I know to change this to the degree we can all contibute, is to keep writing about what we know, what we have seen, what people who are straight arrows have told us… and parsing that based on solid theory and pragmatic fact… and to broadcast our eye-witness, even when under pressure by some to be quiet, and by others to distort the facts.
Your question is good, and there is just much needed to elucidate an answer that would fill in all 100+ parts of this issue
dr.e
Dr. e– Sorry to have asked a question that would take a book to answer, and, yes, I forgot the chilling effect of litigiousness on those who might tell the truth.
Perhaps it is best left to writers like Truman Capote to piece together an account. I think he concluded by the end of “In Cold Blood” that if the two murderers had never met the crime wouldn’t have happened.