Spotlight

By George Merritt, AP Writer
DENVER (AP) ― The families of two young missionaries shot and killed by gunman Matthew Murray at a Colorado religious center met privately with Murray's parents Wednesday to grieve and offer prayers for both the attacker and his victims.

Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, were slain at the Youth With a Mission center in the Denver suburb of Arvada early Sunday. Murray went on to kill two more people at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, 65 miles away, before killing himself.

Relatives of Johnson and Crouse met with Murray's parents, Ronald and Loretta, at an undisclosed location near the mission campus.

"The entire Murray family is overwhelmed by this act of Christian love and forgiveness," Phil Abeyta, Matthew Murray's uncle, said.

"We believe that she (Johnson) would want to forgive. I just want to extend from our family to theirs forgiveness. They have done nothing wrong," said Johnson's uncle, Andy Ronchak.

Earlier Wednesday, about 1,000 people attended a memorial service for Johnson and Crouse at Faith Bible Church near the mission campus. They shed tears, laughed at anecdotes and sang Christian rock songs.

In a statement, Murray's parents said they will hold a private funeral for Matthew Murray later this week.

"We are lost in grief as we prepare to bury our beloved son, Matthew. We loved Matthew with all our hearts, and we are groping for answers as we try in vain to understand the events of last Sunday," the family said.

Colorado Springs police on Wednesday said Murray had an assault rifle, a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and a 9mm semiautomatic handgun when he entered the church. Investigators found an AK-47 assault rifle in his car and a .22-caliber handgun at his home.

Murray purchased the weapons between Nov. 17 and Sept. 11, four in the Denver area and one in Colorado Springs, police spokesman Skip Arms said.

Arms said 26 rounds had been fired from the Bushmaster assault rifle Murray had with him and one round from the Springfield 9mm.

Arms said Jeanne Assam, the volunteer security guard at New Life who shot and wounded Murray, had a Beretta 9mm semiautomatic handgun and fired a total of 10 rounds.

In between the shootings, which occurred about 12 hours apart, Murray apparently left several posts on Web sites saying he was going to kill Christians.

The multiple posts attacked Youth With a Mission, New Life Church and New Life's former pastor, Ted Haggard, who resigned amid a sex scandal. They also referred to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

Murray, 24, was dismissed from Youth With a Mission in 2002 for what the training center has described only as health reasons.

There are other connections: Youth With a Mission maintains an office at New Life Church's World Prayer Center. And Murray's family had ties to New Life, once making a donation.

Murray apparently posted to one forum under the name DyingChild--65. He referred the one of the Columbine killers and the gunman who opened fire at Virginia Tech. He also mentioned Ricky Rodriguez, who stabbed a prominent member of a church once known as the Children of God, then shot himself in the head in 2005. The group had been accused of sexually and physically abusing child members during the 1970s and 1980s.

"Like Cho, Eric Harris, Ricky Rodriguez and others, I'm going out to make a stand for the weak and the defenseless this is for all those young people still caught in the Nightmare of Christianity for all those people who've been abused and mistreated and taken advantage of by this evil sick religion Christian America this is YOUR Columbine," the posting said.

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