Gunmen opens fire in Tenn. church; 2 killed

One witness said the gunman yelled ‘hateful words’ before shooting.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee city official says a second victim has died from injuries suffered in a shooting at a church youth performance.

Knoxville spokesman Randall Kenner says 61-year-old Linda Kraeger died at University of Tennessee Medical Center on Sunday, several hours after the shooting. Sixty-year-old Greg McKendry died earlier in the day.

Fifty-eight-year-old Jim Adkisson is in custody and charged with first-degree murder in the shootings that also left seven injured.

Members of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church were watching a children’s performance when the shooting broke out. No children were injured.

Adkisson was being held on $1 million bail, according to city spokesman Randy Kenner, who did not know if the suspect had retained an attorney. Authorities were searching Adkisson’s home in the Knoxville bedroom community of Powell, Kenner said.

McKendry, 60, was a longtime church member and usher. Church member Barbara Kemper told The Associated Press that McKendry “stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us.”

The gunman’s motive is not yet known. The church, like many other Unitarian Universalist churches, promotes progressive social work, such as desegregation and fighting for the rights of women and gays. The Knoxville congregation has provided sanctuary for political refugees, fed the homeless and founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, according to its Web site.

Kemper said the gunman shouted before he opened fire.

“It was hateful words. He was saying hateful things,” she said, but refused to elaborate.

The FBI was assisting in the case, Police Chief Sterling Owen said, in case it was a hate crime. Police cordoned off the church with yellow and red tape, and were taking statements and collecting video cameras from church members who taped the performance.

There were about 200 people watching the performance by 25 children when the shooting took place.

Church member Mark Harmon was in the first row. “It had barely begun when there was an incredibly loud bang,” he said.

Harmon said he thought the noise was part of the play, then he heard a second loud bang.

Harmon said church members just behind him in the second and third rows were shot. He said his wife told him that she saw the gunman pull the shotgun out of a guitar case.