September 16, 1999

Gunman Opens Fire in a Texas Church; Kills Seven and Himself

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Seven people were fatally shot Wednesday night before the gunman -- identified on Thursday as 47-year-old Larry Gene Ashbrook -- killed himself in a pew at the Wedgwood Baptist Church. Seven others were wounded, three of them seriously.

"It looked like a skit, it looked like something out of a movie," said Bethany Williams, 16, her eyes red with tears and her green crocheted purse splattered with blood. "And I thought it was a fake gun making fake noises."

Authorities this morning still had no idea what motivated the shooting. Ashbrook carried no note, and none was found during a search this morning of his home about 10 minutes from the church.

Several years-old journals found in the home yielded no clues, said Robert Garrity, the FBI's special agent in charge.

"I don't know that we'll ever know the answer to the question of why it happened," Garrity said. "It may just be an enigma for a long time."

Ashbrook apparently wrecked his house before heading to the church. Agents found overturned furniture, holes in walls, concrete poured down toilets and family photos hacked to pieces, Garrity said.

"He virtually destroyed the interior of his house," he said. "This has the appearance of being a very troubled man, who, for whatever reason in his own mind, sought to quiet whatever demons that bothered him."

Ashbrook had no known police record. He acted alone, and there was no indication that he knew anyone at the Southern Baptist church, police chief Ralph Mendoza said.

The shootings happened during a service for teen-agers at the large, red brick church on the southwest side of the city. More than 150 people were inside the building, and the Christian rock group Forty Days was performing after the annual "See You at the Pole" gathering at local schools, where students affirm their faith and concern for the problems of society by holding prayer time around school flagpoles.

Witnesses said the teens were in the sanctuary when the shooter, wearing a black jacket, jeans and a white T-shirt, arrived.

"He hits the door real hard to make his presence known and he just immediately started firing," said Dan Hughes, the church's college minister.

Witnesses said Ashbrook cursed as he fired.

"He was walking around in the sanctuary making some sort of derogatory comments about the Baptist religion," Mendoza said.

City spokesman Pat Svacina said shortly after the shooting began, Ashbrook rolled a pipe bomb down an aisle toward the front of the sanctuary. The bomb exploded but caused no injuries.

"At that point, the kids and the adults that were in there apparently began realizing that this was not the normal situation," Svacina said. "The kids began hiding. We've been told that as the kids were scrambling for cover and moving around, that shots were being fired."

Witness Christy Martin told KDFW-TV: "He was very calm and looked normal and was smoking a cigarette."

When the gunfire was over, Hughes said the man "sat in the back pew and put a gun (to his head) and shot himself and fell over."

Three adults and three teen-agers died inside the church. A 14-year-old girl died early today.

Pastor Al Meredith said the victims "were Sunday school teachers and one of the favored soloists in the church, the children's choir director, kids, youth members, some active, some just getting active, some just beginning to find God."

Linda McConn, who has lived in Ashbrook's neighborhood since 1961 and was a high school classmate of his sister, viewed Ashbrook as a harmless eccentric.

"I always saw him driving around in his father's old Chevy," Ms. McConn said. "We always just kind of thought he was kind of useless."

Authorities, fearing Ashbrook may have wired himself with explosives, sent in a robot to search his body, but found nothing.

Ashbrook carried a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and a .380-caliber handgun, pausing during the attack to reload, using three clips in all, Mendoza said. Investigators found six loaded 9mm clips in his jacket pocket; Mendoza didn't know how much .380-caliber ammunition he carried.

Meredith said he hoped to have the church cleared for use by the weekend.

"It is my heart's desire that if the investigation gets cleared up, somehow, some way we can worship God in this facility Sunday morning," he said. "Our heart's desire is that the king of darkness will not prevail over the kingdom of light."

AP-WS-09-16-99 1017EDT