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Messages spurred search between shootings

Sara Burnett and Kevin Vaughan

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

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Postings left on an Internet message board Sunday morning by

a user referring to himself as

"nghtmrchld26" were so alarming that a visitor called authorities, prompting a frantic search in the hours after two young missionaries were killed in Arvada and before a deadly rampage at a Colorado Springs church.

That user was right to be alarmed: nghtmrchld26 was Matthew Murray's screen name, according to a law enforcement source, and the postings were left in between his attacks 12 hours apart that left four people dead.

Murray, 24, killed himself after a New Life Church security guard shot him several times.

Colorado Springs police said Tuesday that Murray died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Authorities also said Murray had enough firepower - with him and stashed elsewhere - to kill hundreds.

Police found an AR-15 assault rifle, two handguns and a backpack full of ammunition and smoke bombs when they searched Murray's body and possessions.

In the vehicle he drove there, police found an AK-47 assault rifle and more ammunition. Another handgun was found after a search of his home, sources said.

Police have not said where Murray obtained the weapons, but a law enforcement source said all of the guns were bought legally.

Sunday morning, Murray posted nearly a dozen messages, some echoing Web posts from Columbine High School killer Eric Harris.

"I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill," one message said.

The Web site's administrator confirmed Tuesday that another user read the messages and called the FBI.

FBI spokeswoman Rene VonderHaar said the agency received a call around 10:30 a.m. and immediately began investigating.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed in Jefferson County Court, Arvada police learned that Murray was "a disgruntled former employee" who had been corresponding with YWAM staff.

Officers ran Murray's name through a law enforcement database and found that Greenwood Village police had run Murray's name in September, the affidavit states.

A Greenwood Village officer told Arvada detectives he queried Murray after a UPS Store employee called police, concerned because Murray wanted to receive a box of ammunition there. The box was about half the size of a shoe box and contained .40-caliber ammunition, the officer said.

Arvada police obtained Murray's cell phone number from the Greenwood Village officer.

But, according to the affidavit, the phone was turned off and service provider T-Mobile couldn't determine its location.

Around 1:45 p.m., the Arvada detective learned of the shootings at New Life.

A vehicle in the New Life parking lot was registered to Murray, a Colorado Springs officer later said. In plain view inside the car, officers could see clips with what appeared to be ammunition.

By then, the shooting was over.

or 303-954-5343 Staff writer Alan Gathright and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Web postings

Excerpts from the Web postings of "nghtmrchld26," the screen name used by Matthew J. Murray, left on a message board for people disillusioned with fundamentalist religions:

* March 4: "Music can be a very powerful thing. If you didn't know, many churches, especially charismatic, pentecostal, and contemporary churches, use music as a form of controlling and influencing how people act and behave . . . I can just feel the demons fleeing! Glory Halleighluah! In the end, Christian music is more often than not a tool for churches to use as a tool of mind control/brainwashing and control over people's lives."

* Aug. 28: "I just wish I could find where to leave all of this hurt behind."

* Sept. 8: "And I was supposed to keep this 'calling' completely secret from outsiders. Like even other christians were not supposed to know if they were not a part of the 'church elite' at that church and with my mother."

* Oct. 1: "But why care about a world that doesn't care about me anyways? And why go on living in a world that doesn't want me? Caring never felt so lame inside . . . "

* Oct. 6: "Here we go again mother------s trancing out into a nightmare of sadness and insanity as flashbacks come flooding in and taking over, shaking and all alone in this nightmare . . . You raped the soul from the child in me."

* Oct. 17: " . . . there's nothing left for me, anymore . . . everything is gone, nothing left to feel nor to understand. I did not want to live my life nor did I even want to live for my death . . . strong it is indeed . . . life . . . strange to be born for death "

* Nov. 4: "No matter how hardcore cult-like these end of days dominionist pentecostal charismatic church members want to be . . . I'll never give in. They can make fun of me, harass me, and even break my back . . . but they won't break me. I'm working on a way out here, time is going to wash away all pain."

* Nov. 12: "God is ever-present in the workings of the organization. If a person leaves for any reason, accidents or ill-will that may befall them are always attributed to God's punishment on them. For the faithful, the angels are always said to be working, and stories circulate about how God is truly doing marvelous things among them, because they are 'the truth.' . . . The world is depicted as black and white, with little room for making personal decisions based on a trained conscience . . . Drowning in despair."

Comments

  • December 13, 2007

    1:01 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    ThomasMc writes:

    Why is it nobody every quotes where he talks about being tied to a bed and raped by his father? Or his mother refusing to do anything about it, saying it was "God's will?"