'No One Can Fathom a Motive': Pastor Shot During Service
By KATIE ESCHERICH March 8, 2009 A shooting during a morning church service outside St. Louis has left one person dead -- the church's pastor -- and several others wounded, officials said. PHOTO: First Baptist Church pastor Fred Winters was killed in a shooting during a service. Pastor Fred Winters was fatally shot by a gunman during a service Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill. The Rev. Fred Winters was at the pulpit at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill., at 8:15 a.m. local time today when a man wearing dark clothing approached the pulpit and fired four shots, the first of which hit the pastor's Bible, Illinois State Police Director Larry Trent said at a news conference late today. One of the shots from the gunman's .45 caliber pistol hit Winters in the chest, killing him, before his gun jammed, said Trooper Ralph Timmins of the Illinois State Police, which is handling the investigation. After his gun jammed, the shooter injured himself with a knife and subsequently was restrained by parishioners, Timmins said in a "preliminary release" left on his office voicemail recording. Approximately 150 people were in the church at the time. Two parishioners who "tackled" the shooter received "non-life-threatening" injuries from the knife, Timmins said. Winters was "pronounced [dead] at the hospital for a single gunshot wound to the chest," Timmins said. Jeremy Kohler, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, told ABC News Radio that there's "a lot of sadness and disbelief out there" -- and members of the community are trying to figure out how it could have happened. "No one can even fathom a motive for the shooting," Kohler said. "No one really seems to recognize [the shooter] as being a member of the church." Members of the congregation who spoke to the Post-Dispatch outside the church and the local hospital were moved to tears. "I'm in shock," Lindsay Osborne, 18, told the paper. A spokeswoman for Anderson Hospital in Maryville told ABC News it initially received victims of the shooting. "We received three victims from the church shooting," spokeswoman Natalie Head said. "Two of those victims were transferred from our facility. We are not a trauma facility, so we were transferring them to a higher acuity hospital in St. Louis. And one of those victims was dead on arrival." http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=7033937&page=1 | |||||
美教堂槍案牧師被殺多人傷 2009-03-09 07:30:00 美國伊利諾伊州發生教堂槍擊案，一名男子槍殺牧師後企圖割喉自盡，旁人制止他時再有多人受刀傷。 事發於當地周日8時許，27歲的持槍男子走入一個聚集了約150人的教堂，與牧師溫特斯（Fred Winters）說了幾句話之後，突然亮出.45口徑手槍。 牧師以聖經檔第一槍，聖經被打碎，亂紙紛飛，有教眾還以在撒紙碎搞氣氛。但槍手再開三槍，將牧師殺死，之後再拿出10公分長利刀，欲刎頸自盡，但被幾名教眾上前制服。 由於槍手頸部有嚴重刀傷，警方暫時未能錄取其口供，尚未得知他與牧師有何關係，以及行兇的動機。 暫知槍手並非教會的活躍成員，沒有刑事紀錄，也沒有精神病紀錄。 （法新社、美聯社） http://news.sina.com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/32/1/1/1061458/1.html | |||||
較新消息。兇手 Sedlacek 準備殺三十人。他是個 lyme disease 萊姆病患者。 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ap-il-churchshooting,0,4520050.story http://wbztv.com/national/illinois.church.shooting.2.953539.html |