Defense Articles

Four of five bullets fired from the gun of a security guard at New Life Church hit Matthew Murray during his deadly shooting spree at the megachurch on Sunday afternoon, according to autopsy results made public Tuesday.

But a bullet Murray fired into his own head is what killed him, the El Paso County Coroner’s Office said Tuesday.

Guard Jeanne Assam, 42, fired at Murray inside New Life Church, hitting him twice in his legs and once in his wrist, authorities said. Police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms said Murray also received a superficial wound in the chest, likely from one of Assam’s bullets that deflected off his highpowered assault rifle.

After those wounds took him down, Murray shot himself with one of the two handguns he was carrying, Arms said.

That ended a 12-hour rampage during which the 24-year-old from Englewood killed four people, wounded five and ranted on the Web about Christians and his plans to kill many of them.

Authorities said Murray opened fire about 12:30 a.m. Sunday at Youth With a Mission in Arvada, about 70 miles northwest of Colorado Springs, killing Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, and wounding two others.

About 12 hours later, Murray arrived at New Life, where he fatally shot two teenage sisters and wounded their father as they left church services. Stephanie Works, 18, died at the scene; 16- year-old Rachael Works later died at Penrose-St. Francis Hospital. Autopsies showed both died from single gunshot wounds to the torso, Arms said.

The girls’ father, 51-yearold David Works, remained at Penrose on Tuesday in fair condition.

The Rev. Michael Ware, a pastor of Denver-based Victory Church, said he was with the girls’ mother, Marie Works, and her other daughters, Laurie and Grace, at the hospital after the shootings.

He said he watched the four sisters grow up to be confident and happy kids who were steeled in their Christian beliefs. He said the family had attended Victory Church for several years before switching to New Life and was deeply involved in both churches.

Two other New Life parishioners, Judy Purcell and Larry Bourbannais, were wounded during the shooting at New Life. They each were treated Sunday and released.

Bourbannais, 59, said when Sunday’s gunfire started he tried to distract the shooter by calling him names as he hid behind a pillar that Murray was firing upon. Bourbannais, who has been attending New Life for a little more than a year, said he received “just fragments” in his left arm.

“He was the Grim Reaper, all in black, and he showed no emotion,” he said of Murray.

Parishioners and authorities searched for reasons why Murray went on his rampage. The writing, it turns out, was on the cyberwall.

Using Web discussion forums for people who have left Pentecostal and fundamentalist religious organizations, Murray wrote of killing Christians and of his rejection from YWAM. His posts, under the names “Chrstnghtmr” and “nghtmrchld26,” expressed his hatred for his mother, Loretta, and the social skills he was supposedly deprived of by 12 years of homeschooling.

Richard Werner, who was Murray’s roommate at YWAM in Arvada in 2002 for missionary training, recalled Murray as an odd 19-year-old who was painfully shy and displayed extreme “mood swings.” Werner said Murray, who growled and spoke to himself in the middle of the night in strange voices, had trouble socially with other young people.

Murray was let go from the two-month training program because of “issues with his health,” according to YWAM.

According to a police affidavit, Murray was on his home computer for three to five hours every day for the past two years.

“If you’re an extrovert, and popular, then yes, there is plenty of love waiting for you in christianity,” Murray wrote May 8. “If you ask questions and want to understand things and/or desire a real and deep spirituality, or if you’re just not popular. .. well. .. you are considered as one of the horrible people and are either going to be abused or kicked out by ‘holy spirit love filled’ christians.”

In the weeks leading to the shootings, Murray sent hate mail to YWAM in Arvada and to its director, according to the affidavit. Authorities have declined to say what the letters said, but Colorado Springs police Sgt. Jeff Jensen said the letters, like the Web posts, expressed his disdain for Christianity and YWAM.

“The terminology that was used was different (in the hate mail),” he said. “We’re not sure if YWAM reported it to police up there.”

Jensen said Colorado Springs police learned of the Web posts Monday. The Arvada Police Department was primarily investigating the hate letters and Web posts, with the assistance of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI, he said.

Peter Klismet, a former profiler for the FBI and a criminal justice professor at Pikes Peak Community College, said Murray fits the profile of a rampage killer.

Trends

Real-life superheroes are taking inspiration from comic strips to give their cities a dose of citizen policing.

In the US, Mr Silent roams Indianapolis along-side Doktor DiscorD to help those in distress. “I don’t have any powers, obviously,” he says, “but so many people emulate criminals that I wanted to offer another option.” Meanwhile, the UK can boast Captain Champion (www.myspace. com/captain_champion), The Watcher (www.myspace.com/ thewatcher26) and Zeitgeist (www.myspace.com/zeitgeist_ 99). The website www.heroesmeeting .com is bringing many of these oddly- dressed vigilantes together to shed some light on this phenomenon, while hero-gear.net (pictured) is selling the do-gooders outfits and masks.

The train system should take the Pacheco Pass route, entering the Bay Area near a stop in Gilroy, rather than coming through the Altamont Pass, if the California High-Speed Rail Authority board follows the recommendation presented Wednesday by its staff.

The Pacheco and Altamont routes, and several variants of each, were reviewed as part of an environmental impact study commissioned by the board and is the last unsettled section of the proposed 700- mile system connecting the state’s major cities.

Board Chairman Quentin Kopp, a retired San Mateo Superior Court judge, said the board would vote on the route at its Dec. 19 meeting.

While refusing to indicate how he or other members might vote, Kopp was sharply critical of some points made by opponents of the Pacheco alignment.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, made up of Bay Area elected officials, last month recommended the Pacheco Pass route with an added high-speed rail connection fromSan Joaquin County to commuter rail services in Livermore.

The rail authority’s staff recommendation follows the MTC’s lead in calling for the authority to “pursue ‘regional rail’ commuter and high-speed train service via the Altamont Pass between Sacramento- Northern San Joaquin Valley and Oakland-San Jose in partnership with local and regional agencies.”

But several speakers at the meeting noted that the pared-down Altamont idea, while presented together with the Pacheco Pass recommendation, would be separate from the overall high-speed program.

“The problem is, it’s unfunded on an already unfunded project,” said Alan Miller, executive director of the Train Riders’ Association of California. “It’s basically the Pacheco Pass alternative with this political bone thrown out for those who live along the Altamont Pass.”

He also questioned the authority’s estimate that the Altamont commuter service would cost between $1 billion and $3billion extra. The MTC, he noted, estimated that its dual-route plan would cost an extra $5 billion.

After following its agreed-upon route from Anaheim and Los Angeles and through the Antelope and San Joaquin valleys, the high- speed line should head west across the northern edge of Madera County. Then it will stop at Gilroy, where it turns north to stop in San Jose, then in Silicon Valley at either Palo Alto or Redwood and on to stops at San Francisco International Airport and San Francisco’s future Transbay Terminal.

Bay Area transportation officials and elected officials have coalesced around the Pacheco route, which consistently was supported by San Jose and San Francisco officials, who were joined by Livermore Valley officials who feared the system would take large swaths of land and have noisy aerial structures.

Just where to get money for the statewide system, estimated at nearly $40 billion, was also discussed in detail at Wednesday’s meeting.

A $10 billion high-speed rail bond measure would jump-start construction if voters approve it next November, but a team of financial experts studying financing for the board presented a lukewarm assessment about seeking other funds from potential private investors and the federal government.

Getting private partners onboard may require a strictly government-funded segment to open and begin earning revenue first, they said.

The most likely candidate for that might be a line from Anaheim, where Orange County officials have put $7 million up to help study high-speed rail, to Los Angeles, followed by the San Jose-to-San Francisco segment, where the route would follow an existing Caltrain right of way.