Colorado gunman may have warned of second church attack

Police say threats on Web posted between deadly shootings

| The Associated Press

12/11/2007 -

DENVER — In between his two deadly shooting sprees, church gunman Matthew Murray apparently posted furious threats on the Internet to kill Christians. But whether the warnings reached police before he struck again was unclear Tuesday.

The warnings — and other anguished, despair-filled messages over the past few months — were posted by someone using the screen name "nghtmrchld26." The postings paint a picture of a home-schooled Colorado youth once affiliated with the Youth With a Mission program — as 24-year-old Murray had been.

"I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the %$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill," one threat posted Sunday by nghtmrchld26 said.

"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."

At least one visitor to the site contacted the FBI promptly, before the second attack, the site's administrator said. The FBI would not immediately confirm that.

In all, nghtmrchld26 made at least 11 posts between the two shootings on a site run by the Association of Former Pentecostals, a nonprofit group that says it was created to help people who have left Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

"It's time for me to head out and teach these (expletive) a lesson," another message said. "See you all on the other side, we're leaving this nightmare behind to a better place."

The last of the threatening messages was posted at 9:55 a.m. or 10:55 a.m. — the time zone was not clear, said Joe Istre, the association's site administrator and president.

Either way, that was several hours after Murray killed two people at Youth With a Mission, a training center for missionaries in the Denver suburb of Arvada, and at least two hours before he killed two more people at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs around 1 p.m.

An autopsy determined that Murray killed himself with a bullet to the head after he was brought down by gunfire from a volunteer security guard at the church, authorities said.

Denver FBI spokeswoman Rene Vonder Haar said the agency began an investigation immediately after receiving a phone call at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. She refused to discuss the nature of the call but said the information was passed on to police in Arvada and Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs police Sgt. Scott Schwall said police there did not learn the Murray family home's address in Englewood, Colo., until after the church shootings, and a search did not begin until well after dark. The department did receive some information from the FBI well after the New Life shooting took place, he said, declining to say what the information was.

Arvada police spokeswoman Susan Medina confirmed the FBI passed on information regarding the mission center shootings about 10:30 a.m. She would not discuss the information in detail. "We began work on that tip immediately," she said.

Medina said Arvada detectives did not go to Murray's home and speak to his family until 3 p.m., well after the second attack.

Medina said police cannot say with certainty who nghtmrchld26 is.