COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A Colorado church where two people were shot to death in December has offered its prayers and sympathy to a Tennessee congregation that went through its own shooting nightmare on Sunday.
“We’re devastated to hear that it happened anywhere else, and our hearts go out to those families and to the church there in (Knoxville),” said Pastor Brady Boyd of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where Matthew Murray killed two people on Dec. 9.
On Sunday, two people were shot to death at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville.
Police arrested Jim D. Adkisson on murder charges. Investigators said Adkisson, 58, apparently targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal social policies and because he was frustrated that he couldn’t find a job.
After the Colorado Springs shootings, the 24-year-old Murray was wounded by a volunteer security guard and then took his own life. Hours earlier, he had killed two people at a missionary training center in suburban Denver.
Murray left behind Internet writings that depicted him as a disturbed and bitter outcast who turned against charismatic Christianity and dabbled in other beliefs.
“It’s still very raw to us here,” Boyd said Sunday. “So were still working through the grief and the sadness and the mourning of our own situation. So we certainly have a lot of compassion for anyone who goes through this.”
Boyd said the megachurch has emerged stronger.
“When families, when a natural family goes through a crisis, it does one of two things: It either destroys the family or makes a family stronger than ever. In our case it made New Life stronger than ever, and that’s my prayer for this church in (Knoxville).”
