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TechnoratiMatthew Murray, the gunman who is believed to have shot and killed four people in Colorado, appeared to have acted out of revenge against Christians, police officials indicated.
(Photo: AP Images / Kevin Moloney, Pool)As many as twenty bullet holes riddle the entryway of the New Life church in Colorado Springs, Monday, Dec. 10, 2007, where a day earlier a gunman entered the building. Two are dead in addition to the gunman and another three are injured in the second shooting to hit a Colorado religious organization in a day. The gunman in the Colorado Springs shooting was killed by a church security guard.
Authorities believe Murray, 24, posted an anti-Christian message online on Sunday - the day of the shootings - in a language almost identical to the text of a manifesto written by one of the Columbine killers, Eric Harris.
"You Christians brought this on yourselves," Murray wrote, according to KUSA-TV in Denver. "Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don't care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world."
If the time on the posting is accurate, the diatribe was posted between the first shooting at 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning at Youth With a Mission (YWAM) missionary training center in Arvada and the second attack at 1:10 p.m. that same day at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, according to KUSA.
The postings were removed from the unidentified website, which was designed for people who left evangelical religious groups, after Sunday's killings. Other postings by Murray included lyrics by industrial rock band KMFDM.
"Our family cannot express the magnitude of our grief for the victims and families of this tragedy. On behalf of our family, and our son, we ask for forgiveness. We cannot understand why this has happened," Murray's uncle, Phil Abeyta, said in a statement as he fought back tears, according to The Associated Press.
Murray came from what neighbors have described as a "very, very religious" family. His 21-year-old brother, Christopher, is a student at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., and Murray attended a home-based computer school and had worked at his computer for three to five hours a day for the past two years, investigators said.
In 2002, Murray had enrolled in a Discipleship Training School (DTS) at the YWAM Arvada training center. DTS students partake in a 12-week lecture course followed by a 12-week field assignment, usually to another culture. Murray neither completed the lecture phase nor participated in the field assignment. YWAM's USA International President John Dawson said program directors felt "issues with Murray's health made it inappropriate" for him to participate.
Richard Werner, Murray's former roommate at the training center, described Murray as a quiet and sarcastic person who made some bizarre comments. At a YWAM Christmas festival in December 2002, Werner recalled Murray playing Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams (are Made of This)" and Linkin Park's "One Step Closer" which included the lyrics "Cause I'm one step closer to the edge and I'm about to break."
"A lot of the kids really got scared about it," Werner told CNN. "We were just playing songs about Christmas, about God and friendship and then he came up with those songs."
Murray's parents were there and with the center's officials, they decided it would be best for him not to go out on a mission, according to CNN. Murray did not react angrily but was "always very calm," said Werner.
"After that, he got out of the meeting and he turned to a friend of mine and the only thing he said was like 'I have a message for everyone: just say that now you will see your star,'" Werner told CNN. Continue »
