New Life Church shooting report: A warning to no avail

By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 12, 2008 at 9:33 a.m.
Updated March 13, 2008 at 6:27 a.m.

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Early that Sunday morning in December, police officers and security guards prepared for trouble at the sprawling New Life Church in the northern part of the city.

They had no specific threat and no idea exactly what to expect. But someone had opened fire hours earlier at a Christian missionary training center in Arvada, and they knew that organization had ties to New Life Church. They figured they should be on the lookout for anyone who seemed out of place or suspicious.

In the end, according to hundreds of pages of police reports made public on Wednesday, it wasn't enough.

Matthew Murray, a loner with emotional problems, opened fire at New Life following the last service of the day - and just minutes after several police officers who had been at the campus to direct traffic knocked off for the day. In a matter of minutes, Murray killed two teenage sisters, shot their father and wounded two other people before he ended his life in the midst of a shootout with an armed church security guard.

Ran for cover

The Dec. 9 attack - which came about 13 hours after one at the Youth With A Mission center in Arvada - sparked bedlam at New Life Church as people ran for cover, smoke drifted down corridors and gunshots ricocheted off walls.

"There were so many people running, it was so chaotic," one witness, usher Danny Thompson, told officers, according to one entry in the 455 pages of Colorado Springs police reports released after a series of requests from the media.

By then, more than six hours had passed since Colorado Springs officers were warned - starting in a 6 a.m. briefing - about the shooting in Arvada and a potential link to New Life Church.

In Arvada, a man later identified as Murray had opened fire, killing two and wounding two others before fleeing into the night.

By 8:35 a.m., at the church, Colorado Springs police officer Joe Wyatt, who had signed up to work traffic at the services, had talked with ushers who told him about the Arvada shooting. Wyatt went so far as to gather members of New Life's security team - volunteers with police or military training - to talk about "what we would do in the event that there was an active gunman." How they would get into formation. How they would move "quick and fast" and try to "take out the gunman in order to prevent any further damage."

One security officer told the policeman his gun was in his car.

"I suggested that he get it, because you never know what could occur," Wyatt wrote in his report.

By 1 p.m. it appeared to Wyatt and other officers that the bulk of people had left the church, and they all got into their cars and drove away.

At 1:15 p.m., the call went out on police radios - shooting in progress at New Life Church.

One officer wrote in her report that, based on the warnings, she thought the report was "no prank" and sped back to the church.

Murray had opened fire in the parking lot.

Firing as he moved

Murray approached a Toyota minivan. David and Marie Works were climbing in with their daughters - 18-year-old twins Laurie and Stephanie, and Rachel, 16, and Grace, 11.

Murray walked slowly, arcing around the van, firing as he moved.

"Get down! Get down!" David Works yelled.

Murray's bullets shattered windows on the van and cut down Stephanie, Rachel and their father.

Stephanie Works died in the minivan. Paramedics rushed Rachel Works to the hospital, performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation all the way - and doctors fought to save her but could not. David Works, seriously injured, also was rushed to the hospital, where he was treated for wounds to his abdomen and groin.

In another part of the parking lot, shots hit a Toyota 4Runner occupied by Matt and Judy Purcell and their three daughters. Judy Purcell, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, suffered injuries to her shoulder and face, and her husband sped off for the hospital.

Bullets cut through the front fender of a Honda Accord, but the woman behind the wheel wasn't hurt.

Murray walked toward the church, according to numerous witnesses, firing indiscriminately from his assault rifle, blowing holes in the glass doors on the east side of the main church building before he entered.

Inside, in a hallway, Murray's gunfire hit Larry Bourbonnais, 59, in the arm, just as he ducked behind a pillar.

At that same moment, church security officer Jeanne Assam drew her 9 mm pistol and shouted "surrender" at Murray.

"Drop the gun," she yelled. "Drop the gun, or I will kill you."

Pistol in his mouth

She heard Murray say something - maybe "I'm going to shoot myself" - as she opened fire. She wounded Murray - and two of her shots may have hit his guns - but he stuck a pistol in his mouth and ended his life in the midst of the pandemonium.

Within 90 minutes, investigators suspected that Murray was responsible for both shootings. By 5:10 that afternoon, according to reports, investigators had already interviewed Murray's parents. His mother told investigators that he was sleeping in his room as late as 7:30 that morning, that he left the house about 9:30 dressed in black and carrying a large black duffel bag.

As that conversation took place, Murray lay dead in the church while investigators went to work with a robot, checking to make sure he had no explosives in his backpack or pockets.

He had three smoke bombs in a Ziploc bag, and roughly 20 magazines of ammunition for his two pistols and his semiautomatic rifle.

What's new in release of 455 pages

Wednesday's release of 455 pages of police documents revealed new details about the Dec. 9 shootings at New Life Church that left two teenage sisters dead and three other people wounded:

*

Some of the first officers

at the scene applied tactics developed since the Columbine tragedy on April 20, 1999. Instead of waiting for the SWAT team, three Colorado Springs police officers and an El Paso County sheriff's deputy gathered at the doors Murray had entered and moved into the building, looking for him. According to reports, they had moved about 20 yards down the hallway when they came to several New Life security officers who were standing over Murray's body. Murray had just shot himself to death after a confrontation with New Life security officer Jeanne Assam, who wounded him just before he shot himself to death.

*

Numerous eyewitnesses

described the gunman differently.

*

One witness said

he was about 20, with a "very skinny build." Another thought he was "muscley." One witness said he wore a ski mask, but actually it was a dark beanie cap.

*

Several people thought

he was dressed in camouflage. Some witnesses, however, did accurately describe Murray as dressed all in black, though several said he wore a trench coat - which, according to police reports, he did not.

*

Witnesses hid in fear,

some for as much as 45 minutes, after the gunfire erupted. In one case, three women were in a restroom when they heard popping sounds and someone yell, "Mom, there are shots being fired." The women hid behind the stalls in the bathroom. As they stood silently, someone - possibly Murray - opened the door and yelled, "Is anybody in here?" Since the man did not identify himself as a police officer, the women did not answer, and the man moved on. It was 30 to 45 minutes before a SWAT officer entered the bathroom and told the women they were safe.

*

For a time

after the shootings, conflicting witness accounts led police officers to consider the possibility that a second gunman was in the church. However, after a sweep of all the buildings on the grounds, they concluded that Murray had acted alone.

*

Investigators, concerned

about the possibility that Murray's backpack was booby-trapped, used a robot to carefully examine his body. In the end, they found four smoke bombs - one on the floor, three in a Ziplock bag in his backpack - but no explosives.

*

Shortly after the shooting,

Assam told Detective Terry Duran that she was in the midst of a three-day fast in an effort to "get the answer from God of what she should do with her life," that "she was weak and kept asking him for answers." "I told Ms. Assam I thought maybe today God had given her his answer," Duran wrote.

• March 12, 2008

  12:23 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  ham writes:

  Does the report say which guns were used to kill whom? I was curious whether or not the pistols were used, or the rifles....

• March 13, 2008

  7:39 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  fatdog writes:

  The Colorado Division of Emergency Management (CDEM) was not involved in any of this, as far as I know; local people calling other local people and TV spread the news. Shorty after the events, an amazing interview with a spokesman for this World Series agency mentioned that they did nothing regarding these events, and when the puzzled interviewer asked what had they done, he replied that they had passed on to all the transit companies news regarding the London subway bombers. I wonder what they really do of value for us in their glass tower. jkd80401

• March 13, 2008

  7:22 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Charles__B writes:

  Just another example of the *benefits* of religion

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