Larry Gene Ashbrook was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mass murderer. On September 15, 1999, he murdered seven people and injured a further seven at a post See You at the Pole

See You at the Pole

See You at the Pole is an annual gathering of Christian students of all ages at a flagpole in front of their local school for prayer, scripture-reading and hymn-singing, during the early morning before school starts. The American SYATP events occur on every fourth Wednesday of September. This...

 Rally featuring a concert by Christian rock

Christian rock

Christian rock is a form of rock music played by individuals and bands whose members are Christians and who often focus the lyrics on matters concerned with the Christian faith. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Christian varies between bands...

 group Forty Days at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

. Ashbrook then committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

.

Shooting

Ashbrook interrupted a teen prayer rally at the Wedgwood Baptist Church spouting anti-Baptist rhetoric before opening fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and a .380-caliber handgun. He reloaded several times during the shooting; three empty magazines were found at the scene. Seven people were killed, four of whom were teenagers (a 14 year old boy, two 14 year old girls and a 17 year old boy). Three people sustained major injuries while four others received relatively minor injuries.

At Ashbrook's home, police found a pipe, end caps to enclose the pipe, gunpowder and a fuse. Ashbrook had thrown a pipe bomb into the church, but this exploded vertically, and did not injure anyone.

Victims

Kristi Beckel, 14 Shawn C. Brown, 23 Sydney R. Browning, 36 Joseph D. Ennis, 14

Cassandra Griffin, 14 Susan Kimberley Jones, 23 Justin Stegner Ray, 17

Personality and mental state

Nine years before the shooting, Ashbrook's mother died. This reportedly sent him into a cycle of erratic and frightening behavior. Ashbrook lived for many years with his father, Jack D. Ashbrook. Across the street from the Ashbrooks' home, neighbors said they saw Ashbrook treat his father violently but were afraid to report it. City newspaper-editor Stephen Kaye, whom Ashbrook had visited days before the shooting, described him as being "the opposite of someone who'd be concerned about", saying he "couldn't have been any nicer".

However, his neighbors had an entirely different view of him, describing him as strange and violent. Investigators at his house discovered that he had virtually destroyed the interior of his house, and remarked that he seemed very troubled.

Police investigating the shooting could find no solid motive for the crime. In the months before the shooting, people who knew Ashbrook say he became increasingly paranoid, certain that he was being framed for serial murder and other crimes that he did not commit. He also feared that the CIA were targeting him, and he reported psychological warfare

Psychological warfare

Psychological warfare , or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations , have been known by many other names or terms, including Psy Ops, Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds,” and Propaganda...

, assaults by co-workers and being drugged by the police. Just days before the shooting he voiced these concerns to a newspaper, saying "I want someone to tell my story, no one will listen to me; no one will believe me."

External links

• Death in a Church: The Faith, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  (September 18, 1999)
• Death in a Church: The Overview, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  (September 18, 1999)
• Death in a Church: The Politics, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  (September 18, 1999)
• Death in a Church: The Killer, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  (September 18, 1999)
• Death in a Church: The Overview, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  (September 17, 1999)
• Death in a Church: The Victims, The New York Times
  The New York Times
  The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
  
  (September 17, 1999)
• Church gunman kills 7, self, in Texas, CNN
  CNN
  Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
  
  (September 16, 1999)