Church gunman killed himself, autopsy shows

The shooter reportedly warned of the rampage in online postings.

THE GAZETTE

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The man who killed two people at New Life Church on Sunday afternoon died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being shot multiple times by a church security guard, an autopsy has revealed.

Matthew Murray, 24, of Englewood, killed himself with a single shot after church security guard Jeanne Assam, 42, brought him down with multiple shots from her handgun, Colorado Springs police spokesman Lt. Skip Arms said Tuesday.

Autopsy results show Stephanie Works, 18, and Rachael Works, 16, both died from single gunshot wounds to the torso, Arms said. Stephanie Works died at the scene, and Rachael Works later died at Penrose-St. Francis Hospital.

Murray also shot and wounded the girls’ father, 51-year-old David Works, and two other parishioners. Those injuries weren’t life-threatening.

New Life officials announced Tuesday that the church will host a “family meeting” tonight, a gathering of church members, police and firefighters who responded to the shootings, local and state officials and the public.

“It’s simply a chance for us to get together for the first time after this event and let the healing begin,” said New Life pastor Brady Boyd.

It is expected to last about two hours.

He said church services will go on as normal Sunday, though the church has decided to cancel the Wonderland family Christmas event scheduled for this weekend.

The attack at New Life came about 12 hours after Murray opened fire at Youth With a Mission in Arvada, killing two people, according to a Colorado Springs police affidavit supporting a search warrant for Murray’s home. Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, were killed.

At a news conference Monday evening, police said shell casings from Arvada matched a handgun found on Murray in Colorado Springs.

Court documents revealed Murray as a would-be missionary who had been kicked out of YWAM several years ago. His bloody sprees Sunday appeared to have been fueled by revenge.

KUSA-TV in Denver reported Monday that Murray warned of the impending rampage in online postings on an unidentified Web site.

“You Christians brought this on yourselves,” Murray wrote on a Web site for people who have left Pentecostal and fundamentalist religious organizations, KUSA reported.

It was the most recent posting of his on the site, dated Sunday at 11:03 a.m.

In the Web writings, which are now being investigated by Colorado Springs police, Arvada police and the FBI, Murray warned, “I’m coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the [expletive] teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. ... God, I can’t wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”

If the time on the posting is accurate, it was posted after the 12:30 a.m. shootings Sunday morning in Arvada and before the 1:10 p.m. Sunday afternoon shootings in Colorado Springs. Murray’s uncle, Phil Abeyta, pastor of His Love Fellowship Church in Denver, read a statement from the family late Monday asking for forgiveness.

“Our family cannot express the magnitude of grief we feel for the victims and their families of this tragedy,” Abeyta said. “We cannot understand why this happened.”