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Matthew J. Murray

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Matthew J. Murray (1983 – December 9, 2007) was one of two sons of a prominent Colorado neuro-surgeon. Murray was homeschooled by his mother Loretta in a suburb of Denver, in what friends and neighbors described as a deeply religious Christian home. He was the perpetrator of the Youth With A Mission and New Life Church shootings, hate crimes that occurred on December 9, 2007.

Murray's death

Jeanne Assam, a New Life Church volunteer security guard, shot Murray several times with her personally-owned concealed weapon. After Murray was wounded, he killed himself with a shotgun. Based on the large amount of ammunition in Murray's possession, it is widely believed that he would have shot many more people had he not been forced to stop.

Motives

Law enforcement officials stated that Murray was motivated by hatred of Christianity. Police initially claimed when supporting a search warrant that Murray had recently sent hate mail to the Youth With A Mission training center--but later retracted the statement, stating that Murray sent e-mails to an affiliated group in which he criticized Christians but did not threaten violence. He had been dismissed from the school's program three years earlier. Murray self-identified with Seung-Hui Cho, Eric Harris, and former Children of God member Ricky Rodriguez.

Before the shooting Murray left several violent and threatening messages on several religious websites, espousing his hatred for Christianity and his intentions on killing as many Christians as possible.

One message read: "I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the ...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."

This posting demonstrates that Murray was influenced by Columbine perpetrator Eric Harris, who left the following message on his website prior to his own killing spree: "I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the fucking teeth and I WILL shoot to kill... God, I can't wait til 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 a few people. Like Brooks Brown."

Investigators obtained copies of Murray's writings and studied other Web sites. Their probe revealed that his writings, which spanned several months, became increasingly violent. Some web users tried to counsel Murray and one psychologist even offered her services after reading his poem called "Crying all alone in pain in the nightmare of Christianity". Murray refused her offer.

Related articles

References

  1. "Colo. church shooting victims identified". Denver Post. 2007-12-10. Retrieved 2007-12-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. December 11, 2007 (December 12, 2007). "Demons haunted Colorado gunman's world". Associated Press. Retrieved 2008-01-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. Eric Gorski, Colleen Slevin, Jacques Billeaud, George Merritt and Lara Jakes Jordan. "Report: Gunman Was Angry At Christians". KCNC-TV. Retrieved 2008-01-22.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Associated Press (2007-12-11). "Police: Church Gunman Killed Himself". Breitbart.com. Retrieved 2007-12-11.
  6. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14858399/detail.html
  7. ^ http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/dec/10/cops-search-arapahoe-home/
  8. ^ http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/documents/2007/2007-12/20071210/121007searchwarrant.PDF
  9. Jeremy P. Meyer, David Migoya and Christopher N. Osher (December 12, 2007). ""YOUR Columbine": Gunman wrote of rejection as reason for revenge". The Denver Post. Retrieved 2008-01-03. Rodriguez, as a child member in a cult, was forced to perform sex acts. He later left the cult, killed a former nanny and then killed himself. In April, Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=82548
  11. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316387,00.html
  12. http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=82548


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