Church gunman had been kicked out of missionary training

by TheBigRuski | December 10, 2007 at 03:06 pm

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LATEST UPDATE: YouTube now has a video of the same press conference with embedding. The video attached to this post should be working. If not, click link below.

UPDATE: Watch taped press conference of church security officer who shot down killer. YouTube has the embedded feature off for this video, so here is the link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yRcWpU4bGNc

From AP:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The gunman believed to have killed four people at a megachurch and a missionary training school had been thrown out of the school about three years ago and had been sending hate mail to the program, police said in court papers Monday.

The gunman was identified as Matthew Murray, 24, who was home-schooled by his family and raised in what a friend said was a deeply religious Christian household. Murray's father is a neurologist and a prominent multiple-sclerosis researcher.

Five people — including a gunman — were killed, and five others wounded Sunday in the two eruptions of violence 12 hours and 65 miles apart.

The first attack took place at Youth With a Mission, a training center for missionaries in the Denver suburb of Arvada; the other occurred at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where the gunman was shot and killed by a security guard. The missionary training center had an office at the 10,000-member church.

"Through both investigations it has been determined that most likely the suspect in both shootings are one in the same," police said in court papers, confirming what investigators suspected early on.

Colorado Springs police said the "common denominator in both locations" was Youth With a Mission.