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Roommate: Murray booted from center for bizarre behavior

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 11, 2007 at 12:30 a.m.

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ARVADA — Matthew Murray was asked to leave Youth With A Mission five years ago, although the reasons are murky.

The group's Colorado leader said Monday that unspecified health problems prevented Murray from advancing beyond a training program into field work overseas.

But Murray's roommate from that time told CNN Monday night that Murray was booted for bizarre behavior. He also said that Murray told him he heard voices.

Pastor Peter Warren, YWAM's state director, revealed Monday that Murray had tried to join the missionary training program. But he was vague about why Murray left.

And he said no one had recognized the young man, now 24, when he showed up at the group's center in Arvada for a Saturday night party.

"No one here remembers him making any other visits" to the YWAM center, Warren said.

Murray apparently returned to the center early Sunday and opened fire, killing two staffers and injuring two more.

Richard Werner, 34, told CNN that he was working at the Arvada center in 2002, when Murray was there.

Program leaders broke the news to Murray in December 2002 that they weren't going to let him join a planned mission trip to Bosnia, he said.

That was five days after Murray performed a pair of dark rock songs by Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson during a concert at the mission that made fellow workers "pretty scared," Werner said.

The Linkin Park song was One Step Closer, which includes the lyrics "Cuz i'm one step closer to the edge and i'm about to break!"

Months of strange behavior by Murray preceded that concert, according to Werner.

Werner, who now lives in Balneario Camborius, Brazil, said he occupied a bunk near Murray's and that Murray would roll around in bed and make noises.

He asked his roommate about it, Werner said.

"He would say, 'Don't worry, I'm just talking to the voices.' He'd say, 'Don't worry, Richard. You're a nice guy. The voices like you.'"

Werner told CNN he instantly suspected Murray when he heard the news of Sunday's shootings.

"I turned to my wife and I said, 'I know who did it. It's Matthew.' It was so obvious."

Earlier Monday, an affidavit indicated that the director of YWAM in Arvada had received hate mail from Murray.

YWAM staff and students spent Monday at a camp near Golden Gate Canyon State Park west of Golden to grieve, "to process what has happened and pray for one another," Warren said.

Comments

  • December 11, 2007

    9:44 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    RJS07 writes:

    did you and I not read the same story?

  • December 11, 2007

    10:01 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    rmnreader writes:

    They kick the troubled kid out - seems a little backwards huh?! Aren't religions always preaching about helping your fellow man and saving lost souls? Practice what you preach and maybe this kid would have gotten help - not been cast aside and left alone to develop such hatred.