Detailed update on Larry Ashbrook's TX baptist church massacre of Wednesday,he shot 14,killed 7,then self
Joe1orbit
Several different online newspapers, most especially the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, continue to do an OUTSTANDING job of providing detailed updates
and coverage of the REMARKABLE church massacre that 47 year old Larry Ashbrook
undertook Wednesday evening. PLEASE visit the main web page for the church
massacre, which is just PACKED with articles, photos, and even audio & video
clips relating to all different aspects of Larry's rampage of homicidal rage,
over at the following URL:
http://www.star-telegram.com/specials/99fwshoot/
As you should all know by now, Larry shot fourteen, killing seven and
SERIOUSLY injuring at least 3 more, including one teen-age boy who will likely
be paralyzed for the rest of his life. In the below updates we get more info on
the VIDEOTAPE footage that at least two people who were inside of the church
when Larry began his rampage, were able to record. They actually were able to
CAPTURE Larry as he shot his victims, aiming their video cameras right at him.
But it sounds like at least ONE of the amateur videographers got TOO eager to
film Larry, and so stood out as a TARGET, and that fellow could very well be
among the seven dead.
We get some more info on Larry's background. He apparently started to write
his rambling letters to the media just 11 days after his elderly Daddy died in
the middle of July. It's interesting to note how MANY mass killers to be REACH
OUT to the MEDIA just before undertaking their rampages, or at least TRY to
leave behind a DETAILED, written, videotaped, or audiotaped explanation and
"testimonial" of themselves and their True Reality. I think that is a WISE
thing to do. These enraged societal victims RECOGNIZE that they are IMPORTANT
people, that their lives are unique and special, and they WANT to leave behind
as their legacy NOT just a "killing spree", but some type of personal VERBAL or
taped MESSAGE, that they feel best expresses whatever feelings and ideas and
theories about themselves and their place within the human race, that they deem
to be important and a valuable part of their Living Legacy.
A cool detail that has come out is that in trashing his house just before the
massacre, Larry CAREFULLY ripped up a BIBLE, ripping up EACH PAGE of the bible,
clearly feeling EXTREME rage over the INSANE god myth that had been perversely
imposed upon him by his society, and by his family. His Daddy is described as
having been a VERY religious man.
Like MOST mass killers, Larry was very CALM during the actual massacre
itself. See, it's just like doing any other type of DIFFICULT JOB. When you are
trying to SHOOT a LOT of people dead, you need to be calm and to concentrate on
what you are doing, the MECHANICAL actions of properly aiming and firing your
gun. It's just not the right TIME to be all excited and nervous and overeager.
You just need to concentrate on ACCOMPLISHING successfully, your chosen task.
And it sounds like Larry, despite his likely ORGANIC mental illness, had his
head completely together, during the actual shooting spree.
The bad news is that police say that the contents of the two videotapes WILL
most likely NOT be "made available to the public". Why the HE*L not?! At the
very LEAST, the tapes should be RETURNED back to the videographers who filmed
them, or their closest relatives, if one of them is dead, so that they can be
AUCTIONED OFF to the highest tabloid or mainstream media bidder. The tapes
contain ORIGINAL footage shot by PRIVATE citizens. The police have NO right to
seize the tapes and KEEP the contents hidden for ANY length of time. The media
and the public have a RIGHT to access these tapes, and to view the images on
them. I have NO objection to the videographers or their surviving kin making a
PROFIT by selling the footage to the highest bidder, as long as the footage
does end up in the hands of the media, sooner or later.
Because of the NUMBER of fascinating updated articles I am finding, I'm gonna
make two separate posts, but still, VISIT the online edition of Fort Worth
Star-Telegram, for a whole BUNCH of additional articles, photos, etc....
The final article below, the very last one, has you pathetic humans trying to
INSANELY rationalize WHY your precious "god" creature would allow 14 of his
loyal worshippers to be shot, and 7 killed, right INSIDE of his very own "house
of worship". Gave me quite a few chuckles, to read the INSANE excuses and
rationalizations that dod freak preachers as well as ordinary citizen-slaves
offer up, as they continue to desperately hide from and reject the UNBEARABLE
Truth that god does not exist and they are doomed to experience nothingness for
all of eternity, upon their deaths. Believe me, the humans are a LOT more
TERRIFIED of this unbearable truth, than they were as they cowered inside the
church, hoping that Larry would not kill them. It really is unbelievable to me,
how you humans manage to find a way to CLING to your insane myths. bUt I guess
being a victimized creation of a society that was FOUNDED and is BASED upon
nothing more than lies and myths and hypocrisy, helps a lot in that regard.
Take care, JOE
The following two news articles both appear courtesy of the 9/18/99 online
edition of The Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman newspaper:
Gunman's profile shows long record of suspicious beliefs
09/18/1999
By Penny Owen
Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas -- His ramblings were riddled with suspicions that
psychological warfare was being used to pin him as a serial killer.
Larry Gene Ashbrook believed people were after him, that they caused him to
lose jobs and even drugged him in a bar with police and U.S. Army special
forces present.
The disturbed Fort Worth native who gunned down 14 people in Wedgwood Baptist
Church on Wednesday apparently sought some resolution when he wrote his first
letter to the Fort Worth Star- Telegram 11 days after his father died.
The lengthy, disjointed letter dated July 31 asked the newspaper "to
investigate and tell my story."
His story made elaborate connections between such things as the destinations he
drove as a designated driver and the highways where various women were murdered
nearby. It described events where co-workers and acquaintances harassed him.
The letter was followed by one dated Aug. 10, in which Ashbrook wrote of
connections between the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department, the Ku Klux Klan
and television media personalities.
"It is obvious that you are uninterested in my story," Ashbrook wrote.
"Therefore, I find it necessary to amplify certain aspects of it."
Ashbrook, 47, then made a personal visit to City Editor Stephen Kaye, who
described him as "cordial and apologetic" -- and not like someone who was ready
to go on a deadly killing spree.
Ashbrook claimed in his letters to have contacted The Dallas Morning News, The
Dallas Times Herald and television news stations, as well as lawyers and the
FBI, about his problems.
The lanky, long- haired man who couldn't hold down a job and lived off the
support of his father gave these strangers a rare glimpse at his inner hell --
and because so many others write similar letters and profess similar
conspiracies, he was politely brushed aside.
Yet, Ashbrook was not unlike other mass murderers who gave an audience a hint
of what might come. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh wrote an angry letter
to the editor of his hometown newspaper in Buffalo, N.Y., shortly before
plotting his deadly attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
The shooters at Columbine High School produced a videotape as a class project
that depicted students gunning down other students. Months after seeing the
staged production, some of their fellow students viewed the rampage first-hand.
He was dishonorably discharged after being court-martialed for using marijuana.
Ashbrook had difficulty holding down jobs.
In the mid-1980s, Ashbrook worked as a machinist for Photo Etch, a Fort Worth
company that manufactures aircraft parts. His former employer, W.I. Spitler,
described him as a good machinist but a troubled man.
"His departure was under his very intense disgust with the world," Spitler
said. "He left in a big uproar."
Ashbrook lived in the home he grew up in with his 85- year-old father. His
mother, Ethel, died in 1990. He had a brother and a handicapped sister.
Neighbors said he was unfriendly, even hostile at times, and often shoved his
father around.
Some news accounts peg the father, Jack Ashbrook, as a devoutly religious man
who tithed to the church.
In Ashbrook's home, investigators found a Bible ripped apart page by page,
along with family photos. Inside the house, furniture was splintered, walls
were bashed in and cement was poured down the toilets.
Four days after Ashbrook's father died, his brother, Aaron Ashbrook, filed a
report with the Wise County Sheriff's Department, saying he feared his brother
would cause harm.
Aaron Ashbrook told authorities his brother was a "paranoid schizophrenic" and
had made a threatening call to him 20 minutes earlier.
"He says his brother is to be carrying a pistol," Sgt. Harlon Wright said. "He
is afraid of his brother, afraid he's going to do something. He doesn't say
what he's going to do."
That same brother has claimed responsibility for Larry Ashbrook's body, said
Jeff Moran, an investigator with the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.
No funeral arrangements have been made.
----------------------------------------------------
Church videos show gunman methodically firing at victims
09/18/1999
By Penny Owen
Staff Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Without so much as a twitch, Larry Gene Ashworth slowly
and methodically selected his victims as they crouched behind pews in a church
sanctuary. He fired, calmly reloaded, then aimed and fired again.
Fort Worth police have been given two amateur videos that captured in progress
the two-minute killing spree at Wedgwood Baptist Church.
"What it does show very clearly is the methodical manner in which the gunman,
once he was in the sanctuary, randomly stood there and fired shot after shot
after shot," acting Police Chief Ralph Mendoza said.
"He's kind of pacing a little bit, back and forth, and he is just holding his
hand out with the gun in it and just slowly, methodically, picking things to
shoot at."
The cameramen, who were participants in the "See You at the Pole" youth rally
at the church, casually swung their cameras toward the gunman as he entered the
sanctuary and began shouting blasphemous cursings about Baptists.
Mendoza said it appeared they believed Ashbrook was part of an ongoing skit.
The videotapes were there to capture the rally, which included prayer and a
performance by the Christian rock band, Forty Days.
The tapes do not show victims being shot but did capture some diving under
pews. Screams are not heard on the tape.
On one tape, Mendoza counted 20 shots before the camera went blank. On the
other he counted 24. The time span was less than two minutes.
The cameramen apparently failed to take cover, choosing instead to continue
filming.
"There is the possibility that one of the camera people is one of the victims,"
said Mendoza, who declined to identify them.
One of the victims, Justin "Steggie" Ray, 17, dreamed of owning a film
production company. He volunteered to videotape events at school, Scout
meetings, concerts -- and the church.
Mendoza said the tapes probably will not be released to the public.
-----------------------------------------------------
The following three news articles all appear courtesy of the 9/19/99 online
edition of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper:
Updated: Sunday, Sep. 19, 1999
Wounded counselor shielded women from church gunman
By Gordon Dickson
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas -- His actions were heroic, although Kevin Galey did not know
it at the time.
Galey, bleeding from a gunshot wound in his chest, stepped between Larry Gene
Ashbrook and two women and took another bullet in his pelvis. Despite the pain,
he thought he was protecting the women from a paintball attack; he thought the
shooter was an actor in a church skit.
Galey believed that the blood oozing from his right side was paint, until the
gunman discarded his empty clip and reached for another.
"When he dropped the clip, I knew it was a gun. I know what a paintball gun
looks like," Galey said Saturday at Harris Methodist Fort Worth hospital, in
his first public comments since the shooting Wednesday night at Wedgwood
Baptist Church.
"Then he dropped his clip, he reached down and found another clip for his gun,
reloaded and fired the gun . . . He opened the door (of the sanctuary) and
started firing at the kids."
Despite his heroics, Galey said he wishes that he could have done more to stop
Ashbrook from making his way into the sanctuary.
"Possibly if I could have gotten up and tackled the guy," he said.
Galey, one of the first to encounter Ashbrook in a hallway outside the
sanctuary, is expected to recover fully, although his ruptured colon will need
several months to heal.
Galey, 38, a doctoral student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in
Fort Worth, is a church counselor at Wedgwood. He is more accustomed to
assessing the emotional state of others.
"I have a unique perspective as a counselor. I've got to minister to these
families," he said. "I'm going through survival guilt. I'm in a quasi-denial
stage, moving toward an anger stage. It comes to you, `Why did it have to
happen to these people?' "
Galey remembers vivid details of the shootings, which occurred during a church
youth rally.
When Ashbrook burst in, Galey was standing in a hallway leading to the
sanctuary. He heard at least five gunshots before coming face-to-face with the
gunman, who fired a shot into the right side of Galey's chest.
Ashbrook also fired at Galey's head, but missed, Galey said.
Galey and his wife, Leslie Galey, are no strangers to adversity.
Late last year, their youngest son, Joel, who has spina bifida, had an
experimental fetal surgery in his mother's womb. Spina bifida is a birth defect
that occurs when a fetus' spine fails to close properly. Joel, who is 9 months
old, is progressing well.
"This has been a real trying year for my family," Galey said. "You ask yourself
the questions, `Why me? Why not me? Why my church?' I know it's hard for some
people to believe, but it already has strengthened my faith because people have
rallied together."
His entire family was at the church at the time of the shooting. Leslie Galey,
Joel, and two other sons, Micah, 3, and Jacob, 6, were at the church's nursery.
"My children are safe," Leslie Galey said. "We're lucky to be alive."
------------------------------------------------------
Updated: Sunday, Sep. 19, 1999
Gun dealers say they can't spot madmen
By Jeff Prince
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas -- The much-displayed photo of the Wedgwood Baptist Church
gunman shows a grim-faced, tight-jawed man.
But gun dealers at Trader's Village flea market, where Larry Gene Ashbrook
purchased handguns used in Wednesday's church shootings in nearby Fort Worth,
said it is impossible to spot a potential maniac.
"He probably was in here," said Fred Rice, 74, owner of Federico's Firearms
since 1981. "It's not my fault. There's nothing illegal about it."
A special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said Ashbrook
purchased a gun at Guns N Such, now closed, and another at Village Gun Sales,
where an employee declined to comment.
It's easy to view Ashbrook's photo in hindsight and make judgment calls, said
Don Harold, 58, owner of The Bullet Hole at the flea market.
"You can't judge people by what they look like or how they're dressed," he
said, adding that he does not recall seeing Ashbrook. "It's a sad situation.
Still, in my way of thinking, this is not a gun issue, it's a mental issue."
Ashbrook is not the only one who looks scary in photos, said Harold's employee,
Rick Hart, 45.
"That's a driver's license photo," he said. "You can't go by that."
A store customer offered proof. The smiling, friendly man in his 50s pulled out
his driver's license, which showed him tight-lipped, with an intense stare.
Gun dealers at the flea market in Grand Prairie, a Fort Worth suburb, call the
FBI for a background check before selling a gun. The bureau does not go into
detail about its findings but tells the dealers whether the sale is approved or
denied.
At a nearby booth, Maxine Ratliff, 71, was selling car mats, as she has done
for more than five years. The gun shops are not to blame, she said.
Ashbrook "had no record," she said. "He probably legally purchased it. They had
no reason to discriminate against him."
One shopper said guns should not be sold, period.
"You don't know who is crazy and who is not, so it's better to ban them
altogether," said Irinel Dragan, 68.
He and his wife moved to Texas 20 years ago from Romania, where citizens can't
buy guns, he said.
"Perhaps this explains why we have no guns," he said. "But we survived without
them. That's my point."
Ratliff, however, said the problem is not guns.
"You have car wrecks, but you still get in your car and drive," she said.
Ratliff and her husband own a handgun but keep it locked away at home and
rarely handle it, she said. Still, she should be able to own one, she said.
"Outlawing guns or marijuana, like prohibition, just makes you want it more,"
she said. "Outlawing isn't the answer. Maybe education, and parents teaching
children right and wrong. Our values should start at home."
-------------------------------------------------------
Updated: Sunday, Sep. 19, 1999
Mental health pros discuss Ashbrook case
By Mary Doclar
Star-Telegram Dallas bureau
DALLAS -- Larry Gene Ashbrook fit the profile of a mass murderer, with a moody,
unpredictable temperament, paranoid attitudes and grudges against society or
peers, according to the director of psychiatric services at Parkland Memorial
Hospital.
But Dr. Saundra Gilfillan said at a mental health symposium yesterday that it's
still difficult to say whether someone should have sought help for Ashbrook
before he went on a shooting rampage at Fort Worth's Wedgwood Baptist Church.
"As we look at the descriptors, I think it was quite apparent that this wasn't
just an average American 47-year-old white male who had a bad day and decided
to go shoot somebody," Gilfillan said.
Other health professionals attending the symposium on suicide and depression at
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center said that seeking help for
someone like Ashbrook is difficult. Mental health warrants can be served but
only when someone appears to be a danger to himself or others.
"It's extremely complex," said Dr. Tim Lane, a psychologist and assistant
professor at the University of North Texas. "We cannot make people seek any
kind of help, short of them threatening homicide or suicide."
Shirley Ekwelum, a teacher and counselor in Dallas, said friends, family and
neighbors shouldn't ignore behavioral changes that hint at future violence.
Those signs include disrespectful behavior, acts of vandalism and disruptive
mood swings.
"Take some action," she said. "Don't sit on it."
Early intervention was also stressed by Joe Lovelace, past president of the
Texas affiliate of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which
successfully lobbied the Legislature this year for an additional $78.8 million
in mental health funding.
"When will society recognize it's better to intervene early than to wait and
play the odds the person is going to act in a way tragic enough that society's
going to respond?" he said.
Gilfillan, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern
Medical School, said that because Ashbrook lived alone and was isolated, others
were probably not aware of his problems.
However, a family member had told the Wise County Sheriff's Department that he
was a paranoid schizophrenic, and neighbors said Ashbrook had exposed himself
and shouted obscenities.
"It sounded like he really was an island unto himself," she said.
Lane said that increasing urbanization has lent to the loss of cohesive
neighborhoods where people look out for each other.
"People often don't know their neighbors, and that's a sad thing," he said. "In
small towns, people would be aware of other people's issues."
These organizations provide mental health assistance in Tarrant County:
Mental Health Mental Retardation of Tarrant County operates a 24-hour hot line,
(817) 335-3022.
National Alliance of Mentally Ill-Tarrant County, (817) 332-6600.
Depressive & Manic/Depressive Association of Fort Worth, (817) 654- 7100.
Mental Health Association of Tarrant County, (817) 335-5405.
Source: MHMR of Tarrant County
-----------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 9/18/99 online edition of The Fort
Worth Star-Telegram newspaper:
Updated: Saturday, Sep. 18, 1999
Clergy grapples with God's place in church tragedy
By Tara Dooley
and Susan Gill Vardon
When a gunman walked into a Fort Worth church last week and opened fire on
worshippers as they celebrated their faith, where was God?
And if God has ultimate control, why did God let this happen?
These are some of the questions that pastors, theologians and Christian
counselors say they expect to face in the wake of Wednesday night's shooting at
Wedgwood Baptist Church in which eight people, including the gunman, were
killed and seven others were injured.
"I think all of us, when we are in a situation we can't control, try to ask,
`Who is in charge of this?' " said Timothy Warren, professor of pastoral
ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary. "We immediately think, `Oh yeah,
this is where God fits in the picture.' "
Fitting God into the picture of the Wednesday shooting may not be easy, even
for people of faith, religious leaders say. Often there are no simple or
satisfactory answers to theological questions such as, "What kind of god would
allow people to be slain in a sanctuary?"
In addition to the big questions, leaders say, the tragedy is a call for them
to find practical means to secure their churches, comfort the grieving and
fortify a community of believers.
"The capacity to deal with that kind of reality [the Wedgwood shooting] is
certainly part of what it means to be a religious person today," said Monsignor
Milam J. Joseph, president of the University of Dallas in Irving and a longtime
parish priest in Fort Worth, Dallas and Tyler. "I think religion can create a
context in which people can be heard. Community is so very, very important."
This is not the first time that a religious community has had to grapple with
questions about God after tragedy invaded the sanctity of a church.
In 1980, a gunman interrupted Sunday services at First Baptist Church in
Daingerfield in East Texas, killing five people and injuring 11 others.
Alberta King, the 70-year- old mother of Martin Luther King Jr., was gunned
down along with a church deacon in 1974 as she played The Lord's Prayer on an
organ at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
In 1994, a tornado killed 20 worshippers, including the pastor's daughter,
during a service at Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Ala.
Like those incidents, the Wedgwood shooting has inspired religious questions.
But the ideal time for personal reflection may be before a dramatic event
occurs, said Jeff B. Pool, a lecturer of theology and the interim director of
Baptist studies at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth.
He and other theologians offer multiple perspectives on tragedy.
In many ways, the immediate cry of "God, why?" may be more of an exclamation of
grief than a search for intellectual answers to a tragic riddle, Pool said.
Although shaking a fist at the sky and blaming God may be a natural reaction to
such despair, it is misinformed, said Russell Dilday, a staff member at Truett
Theological Seminary at Baylor University and a former president of
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
"God hurts with us when this kind of thing happens," he said. "It's a shallow
escape type of thing to say, `This is God's will.' "
In Pool's view, God would not gun down children. Instead, God has endowed
humans with the freedom to choose good or evil, he said.
"God lives with those results as much as we do," Pool said.
Warren said he believes that God has a hand in controlling such events. He said
that view may seem cold to those who are grieving, but he said the shooting is
an example of the evil in the world.
"I think the evil in our hearts doesn't need much to spill out and spill over,"
he said. "God lets these things happen so we can see that is in us."
From the Catholic perspective, why a man would shoot young people in a house of
prayer is, in many ways, a mystery, Joseph said.
"I don't know all the answers," he said. "I just know that I have to take that
kind of contradiction and put it before the cross as a Christian person and put
it before the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and put it before the
power of the Holy Spirit that is in our lives and say, `With the help of other
people, help me to deal with this.' "
Exploring the mysteries of faith and theological questions about God during a
time of great loss may not be the most appropriate way to reach out to those
who are grieving, said Daren K. Martin, president and founder of Plano-based
Christian Counseling Associates.
As Martin reached out Wednesday night to families of victims of the Wedgwood
shooting, he offered comforting Bible passages and prayers to people of faith,
he said.
"It's not time for a theology lesson," he said. "We should be careful to avoid
pat spiritual answers."
For pastors offering support to those affected by the shooting, it will be
important to reach out with counseling and comfort, Warren said. But members of
Wedgwood will not be the only ones seeking solace.
"A true pastor will recognize that there are a lot of people who have questions
in their minds and would likely address the topic this week," Warren said.
Pastors should think of the shooting as a challenge to seek out outsiders and
troubled people and to offer them help, Dilday said. The Wedgwood gunman, Larry
Gene Ashbrook, has been described as a loner prone to violent outbursts. In
letters to the Star-Telegram, Ashbrook expressed frustration that no one took
his concerns seriously.
"It may say that, as Christians, we need to be more concerned about these
people with an empty life," Dilday said.
The killings should prompt pastors and congregations to question whether they
seek to include everyone, said the Rev. Carol Record, pastor of Unity Church of
Northeast Tarrant County in Grapevine.
"We are all outsiders to some group," she said. "I do think that's a challenge
for all of us. We say, `We're nonjudgmental,' yet at the same time we tend to
attract people most like us.
"Maybe we need to grow and learn to respect our differences," she said.
Although the Wedgwood shooting may pose questions for some, others view it with
horror but also as a reassurance of their beliefs.
"I think that it has strengthened my faith," said 17-year- old Tim Gingrich, a
leader of a prayer group at L.D. Bell High School in Hurst. "It tests one's
faith. But if you stand strong through that question, you come out on the other
side more assured."
Hope also can come from remembering that church shootings are rare, said Craig
Roshaven, pastor of First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort
Worth.
"I like to quote Martin Luther King Jr.: `Though the moral arc of the universe
may be long, it does bend toward justice.' " Roshaven said. "I really like
that. Even though we have bad things happening, on the whole, we have reason to
have hope and faith and that life is good and that this is an aberration, not a
pattern."
For the Rev. John Stone, pastor of First Baptist Church in Daingerfield, the
events in Wedgwood "reopened the wounds in the hearts of a lot of our people."
But Wednesday's shooting also reminded Stone of the comfort that his
congregation found over time.
"It's caused some to hurt but others to rejoice," he said. "We can look back
and see that God took this church by the hand and raised it from the ashes into
something stronger and more unified than it was that day."
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Joe1orbit
Here ya go folks, a couple more really long, detailed, ATMOSPHERIC news
articles, that do a great job of painting a mental picture of Larry Ashbrook
and exactly how he carried out his baptist church massacre, in Fort Worth,
Texas. These are the type of news articles that I SAVOR the most, because they
don't just provide DRY FACTS, but instead they paint a beautifully evocative
mental portrait of what Larry was like, and what the exact scene inside of the
church, during the massacre, was like. In reading these articles, you can
create vivid mental images of how Larry must have felt, both before and during
the massacre, and how the targeted victims probably felt, what they may have
seen & experienced, as the 5 minute long rampage played itself out. For me
personally, the VIVID descriptions provided, even if every description might
not be 100% accurate, make these articles VERY special. I just love to play out
rampages like this, in my own mind, and these articles make those fantasies
real and vivid and detailed.
Unbeliably good job by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I mean they have
EVERYTHING at their special web page devoted to the massacre, close to 100
different articles, 50+ photos, & audio clips, etc... The ONLY complaint I have
is that it's so hard to find a photo of Larry himself, at the site. Ya still
gotta check it out folks, and the URL is:
http://www.star-telegram.com/specials/99fwshoot/index.htm
In reading these two articles, you see what a PROFOUND, life-altering impact
a SINGLE enraged societal victim can have, upon countless THOUSANDS, if not
millions of people, simply with having made a choice to claim mass murder
vengeance, and carrying out their plan with skill, determination, and success.
Take care, JOE
The following two news articles both appear courtesy of the 9/19/99 online
edition of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper:
Updated: Sunday, Sep. 19, 1999
A night of terror, caring, courage
By Mike Cochran
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH -- In the twilight of a sparkling and gentle late summer day, Larry
Ashbrook finally snapped.
He ripped apart the family Bible, page by page, and tore up cherished family
photographs. He used a shovel to savage a family portrait and a crowbar to
demolish the family home.
Investigators will never know what demons raged in Ashbrook's troubled mind
that day. His own brother said he was profoundly disturbed.
In the last hours of his last day in his 48th year, Ashbrook trashed the modest
home in Forest Hill where he lived alone after the recent death of his father.
He bashed in the walls, overturned furniture and smashed a TV set. He poured
concrete into the toilets and motor oil on the shower heads.
Yet, an enigma to the end, he also pruned his backyard fruit trees and watered
his potted plants.
And then, perhaps in a farewell act of defiance, neighbors say he appeared to
have poisoned the trees in his front yard.
Weird Larry, they called him. Many were afraid of him; most didn't like him. He
detested them, intimidating the kids and elderly women. Men, he rarely messed
with.
Shortly after 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Ashbrook, armed with two handguns and 10
clips of ammunition, climbed into an old Pontiac sedan. He had a mission, and
it lay 10 minutes west, just off Interstate 20.
A church, for God's sake.
Weird Larry. Everyone conspired to portray him as a vicious killer, he insisted
this summer in two rambling but artfully crafted letters he sent to the
Star-Telegram. Now, with God as his witness, he would indeed become one.
Before the night ran its tragic course, Larry Gene Ashbrook, a loner and a
delusional outcast, would trigger the deadliest shooting spree in Fort Worth
history.
During 10 minutes of terror, he would randomly, but calmly and methodically,
kill seven, wound seven and then fire a bullet into his own muddled brain.
It was a night of unspeakable horror and heartbreak, of courage and caring, of
cruel and troubling twists: One young victim would unknowingly videotape his
own slaying.
As Ashbrook backed from his driveway that evening, headed for the church, he
encountered a neighbor and politely pulled over to permit him to pass.
"It was the nice thing to do, the normal thing," the neighbor, Matthew White,
would say later.
Shortly before 7 o'clock, Ashbrook pulled into a handicapped parking space near
the main entrance of the church, Wedgwood Baptist, nestled in the heart of a
middle-class neighborhood of brick homes and soaring shade trees.
Why he chose his target may never be known. Much later, a frustrated police
officer theorized that the church "had to be picked" but admitted that
investigators could not pinpoint a clear-cut connection.
"He would have to know where he was going," Deputy Chief Don Gerland said. "You
don't come across this church by accident. You have to know where it is."
Inside, more than 150 young people had gathered to hear a Christian rock band,
Forty Days. The concert was part of an annual nationwide prayer event called
See You at the Pole.
The mood was festive. Besides music and singing, a skit was on the agenda.
Others had come for choir practice and normal Wednesday night events.
With a cigarette dangling from his mouth and his eyes shielded by sunglasses,
Ashbrook strode past the colorful crape myrtle bushes guarding the entrance and
into a church foyer.
He wore a dark green jacket, jeans, tennis shoes and a baseball cap. His guns,
a Ruger 9 mm semiautomatic and a .380-caliber AMT, were concealed inside the
jacket.
So was a homemade pipe bomb.
He spoke briefly with a group of adults. Jeff Laster, 36, a pleasant seminary
student and church custodian, approached Ashbrook and asked him to put out his
cigarette.
Ashbrook pulled the Ruger from his waistband and shot him in the stomach.
As Laster toppled to the floor, seriously wounded, Ashbrook spotted Sydney
Browning, 36, director of the children's choir, seated on a couch with a
friend. He shot her. As she slumped over dead, the friend, Jaynanne Brown, 41,
felt a bullet graze her head.
"I knew I'd been hit because there was a very hot feeling," she said. "I put my
hand up and thought, `Dear Lord, is this how it feels to die?' "
As the gunman moved on, she fled to a tearful reunion with her two children,
who were inside the church but not harmed.
The death of Sydney Browning devastated all who knew her, not the least of whom
was 7-year-old Carly Fulbright, who ran from the sanctuary and fell crying into
the arms of her father, George Fulbright.
"They shot my choir director," she screamed. "They killed my choir director."
The gunman's next victim was Shawn Brown, 23, like Laster a student at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Ashbrook caught him
alone in the hallway and opened fire. Fatally wounded, he stumbled several
yards before collapsing.
Ashbrook fired through a window of the sanctuary, but few if any realized they
were under siege.
"I heard some noise out in the hallway and turned around to look back, and I
saw this guy with a gun through the window in the doorway," recalled Ben
Killmer, 17, a senior at Crowley High School.
"I saw the gun in his hand. I saw him shoot through the glass and the glass
fly."
But like others, he simply could not believe what was happening.
"I was standing in back of the church, and the next thing you know the bullets
started coming through the window," said Glen Bucy Jr., 17. "The guy was
pointing right at me."
Aaron Bray, 18, also a senior at Crowley High School, felt something whiz by
his arm. "I don't know if it was glass or the bullet," he said.
Ashbrook moved on down the hallway, past Shawn Brown's body, to a set of doors.
Moments later, the gunman entered the sanctuary.
It was not yet 7 p.m. when a dog interrupted Chip Gillette's attempt at a nap.
An off-duty police officer, Gillette arose from the couch and walked to the
front room, where his 4-year-old Labrador was staring out the window and
barking madly.
"Every hair from the tip of his nose down his back was sticking straight up
like a razorback hog," Gillette, 45, would recall later.
He looked across the street and saw people emerging from the church and sensed
that something was wrong. His wife, Debbie, and 15-year-old daughter were
inside the church, where he is a deacon.
In shorts and shirt but no shoes, he rushed to investigate but was intercepted
outside by a friend. The friend urged him to get help, saying, "Someone was
inside shooting and killing people."
Suddenly, someone bolted through a church door. Gillette heard popping sounds
inside and saw a person down. He raced home for his equipment and gun and
radioed for help.
"All I could think about was I had my family over there and other kids I know,"
the officer said.
He would return too late to confront the gunman. But his wife and daughter were
safe.
At 6:55 p.m., a man's voice: "Shots fired." Those were the first words the 911
operator heard of the Wednesday night massacre. Almost two dozen calls would
follow.
"How many shots were fired?" the operator asked.
Caller: "Wedgwood Baptist Church, Whitman and Walton. Southwest Fort Worth."
Operator: "OK, is there anybody hurt?"
Caller: "I don't know. There's a rally going on here. I don't know what else is
going on. It may be a, well, if it's a skit or something I don't know about it,
but I'd rather have you on your way than ..."
The caller told the operator the assailant pointed a gun at him and fired
several shots. He could not provide a description.
"He had on glasses. He was clear down the hallway. All I saw was the flash of
the muzzle and, man, I headed out the other direction."
Almost simultaneously, a woman's voice: "There's a lady who looks like she is
bleeding from the head. A bunch of teen-agers came running out crying."
Operator: "Tell me what you know."
Caller: "OK, there's a lady bleeding."
Operator: "Has she been shot?"
Caller: "... Yes." From outside the church came a call from a woman who had
driven up to drop off her child and was warned away.
"I was driving my son up here and people came running out and saying, `Get out,
get out, get out.' I know that man who was yelling at me. It's not fake. He
said someone was in there killing everyone."
A call from inside the church: "We've got a Columbine incident going on in the
place. I have no idea what is going on."
At this point, Ashbrook was turning the church into a killing field.
As Ashbrook moved through the foyer, mumbling and firing, 17-year-old Mary Beth
Talley dropped the programs she was distributing and ran into the sanctuary.
Over the sounds of the band, she yelled, "There's a man shooting outside!"
She spotted the mother of a lifelong friend, Heather MacDonald, struggling to
get her disabled daughter out of the pew and onto the floor. Talley ran to the
woman and shielded her teen-age friend with her own body, providing an easy
target for the gunman.
"My full body was in view of him," she said later. "I heard a shot and then I
felt it."
The bullet penetrated her right shoulder, creating a quarter-size hole, and
somehow lodged in the muscle and tissue of her lower back. Even then, she
remained with her friend, hovering over her until the shooting stopped.
She half-ran, half-staggered outside to the church lawn, lay down and tried to
stanch the bleeding with the church programs.
Talley, an honor student at Southwest High School, remembers thinking: "God,
please don't let me die. I'm ready if you want to take me, but I'm not ready. I
haven't seen my mom all day."
The injury was not life- threatening, and doctors will remove the bullet in a
few weeks.
Dax Hughes, Wedgwood Baptist's college minister, was among the first to spot
the gunman when he entered the sanctuary. "He hits the door real hard to make
his presence known and he just immediately started firing," Hughes said.
Young Bucy, the Crowley student, said the gunman came through the door cursing
and saying that "religion is b-------."
"We thought it was a joke," said Kristen Dickens, 14, who was sitting in the
second pew. "We were singing and he told us to shut up. I thought our pastor
was playing a joke on us."
Bray, another of the Crowley students, was just as disbelieving.
"We never knew it was real or part of the show," he said. "Some people up in
the balcony were giggling, some even laughing. There was no screaming."
Killmer, his Crowley classmate, agreed.
"I never really knew it was for real until it was over and cops were running us
out of there and I saw blood on people's clothes and some of the bodies and
wounded people lying around," he recalled.
"... It was so strange. People were smiling, at least at first, and laughing.
It was hard to believe it was really happening."
For Justin Laird, Wednesday was a roller coaster that crashed and burned.
A 200-pound offensive lineman for the Brewer High School Bears, Laird
celebrated his 16th birthday Wednesday by acquiring a driver's license, a
milestone for most young men.
"He was very excited about that," a family member said.
His church had planned a surprise party for him at the conclusion of the
Wednesday night prayer meeting. Instead, he spent the night in a hospital,
paralyzed by the church intruder.
He was sitting near his parents when Ashbrook opened fire, and they rushed to
his side. It was too late.
"His father discovered that he had been shot, and he was the one who dragged
him out of the building," said Jim Gatliff, the family's pastor.
Unaware of the extent of his injury, Laird sent word from his bed at John Peter
Smith Hospital that he wanted the playbook for a junior varsity football game
scheduled for Thursday night.
Said Coby Kirkpatrick, the Bears' trainer: "He told his grandpa that I had to
tape him up so he could play tonight. So I brought a roll of tape and left it
in his room."
A short time later, Laird's doctor arrived. He told the young man the bullet
had damaged his spinal cord, causing paralysis from the chest down. A
neurosurgeon had been summoned to determine the risks of trying to remove the
bullet.
The boy's father said the doctor told him "it would take a miracle" for his son
to walk again. It was shattering news to family and friends, and yet the young
man himself kept everyone's spirits afloat. "That's just the kind of kid he
is," Gatliff said.
Justin Ray, 17, who is a senior at Cassata High School, and a woman were
separately videotaping the program when they heard gunfire behind them.
They turned and focused their cameras on the man as he moved through the
sanctuary, methodically picking and shooting his victims. The tapes show only
about a minute of Ashbrook's spree, and neither captured anyone being shot.
Acting Police Chief Ralph Mendoza and police administrators who viewed the
videos said the tapes depict the predominantly youthful audience diving for
cover.
"He's kind of pacing slowly, holding his hand out with the gun out," Mendoza
told reporters. "What I saw on the film was one handgun firing. It was not
rapid. It was slow, methodical, picking [his targets], aiming and shooting."
Ashbrook did not appear worried or even angry.
"He did not seem to be panicked. ... He took his time. ... He randomly stood
there and fired shot after shot after shot," Mendoza said.
One video recorded 20 gunshots and the other 24 gunshots of what police believe
was a 10-minute rampage. Officials said Ashbrook reloaded three times during
his onslaught and had six 9 mm clips in the pockets of his jacket.
The videos did not pick up the words of Ashbrook as he spouted obscenities at
his quarry and denounced their religious beliefs.
Nor, apparently, did they record the explosion of Ashbrook's pipe bomb, which
he tossed down an aisle to the front of the sanctuary, where it detonated
harmlessly.
"At one point," said Bray, one of the Crowley youths, "I heard a big bang. At
first, I thought he was close to me and shot. But I guess now that that's when
the pipe bomb went off.
"A piece of [shrapnel] came down and hit me on the back of the neck, but it
didn't hurt." Meanwhile, Mendoza said, both videos suddenly went black.
One came from a woman who turned it over to authorities Thursday evening. The
second came from a camera clutched in Justin Ray's lifeless hand. An
audiovisual student, Ray dreamed of owning his own film production company one
day.
A family spokesman said the teen-ager was panning the sanctuary with the camera
and did not realize how close he was to the gunman or that he was about to be
shot. Apparently, the last thing Ray saw through his lens was Ashbrook as he
raised the gun and fired the bullet that killed him.
All the while, friends said, Ray apparently thought he was filming a skit.
Within minutes, perhaps seconds, Ashbrook sat down in a pew at the rear of the
sanctuary where he could survey his handiwork. Then he put a gun to his head
and pulled the trigger.
For Larry Gene Ashbrook, the pain was over. For a stricken city, it was just
beginning.
----------------------------------------
Updated: Sunday, Sep. 19, 1999
School shares pain of survivors
By Tim Madigan
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
LITTLETON, Colo. -- On Thursday at Columbine High School, the previous night's
tragedy at Wedgwood Baptist Church rarely came up. After school, it was
different. Teachers, students and parents spoke then of their heartbreak about
Fort Worth. After school, they offered condolences to the Fort Worth victims in
the most poignant terms. After school, they offered messages of hope based on
hard experience.
But not during the day, not inside the sprawling tan stucco school building
near this tidy Denver suburb, where every slamming locker can still bring
shudders, where some students are still reduced to tears and trembling by the
starter's pistol at a cross-country meet.
Such is one part of the still-fresh legacy of April 20, when two troubled
Columbine students set forth on their terrible rampage. Such is the alchemy of
healing from such an event. There are times to talk, and times to stick your
head in the sand and soldier on.
Late Thursday afternoon, Terry Havens, a longtime Columbine math teacher and
cross-country coach, stood just outside the school before making his way home.
His body language and facial expression were deeply apologetic as he tried to
explain to a visitor from Texas:
"It's not that we don't care or don't understand or don't feel for them,"
Havens said. "It's just that we're still trying to heal. So really, in school
we try to avoid the topic on purpose. We can't talk about it. We just can't."
At 11:20 a.m. April 20, Havens was giving a math test when he heard in rapid
succession a commotion in the halls, then shots and then the fire alarm. He and
his students rushed outside to safety, among the lucky ones.
On the other side of the school, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, two
Columbine students carrying hearts full of hate, automatic weapons and homemade
bombs, opened fire as they approached the building through a parking lot. They
gleefully blasted their way through the cafeteria, up stairs and down halls and
into the library, turning the quiet room into a killing chamber. By the time
they turned their weapons on themselves, 12 schoolmates and a teacher were
dead, and 23 more were injured.
In an instant, Columbine, the school with the lofty SAT scores, set beneath the
foothills of the Rockies, had become an unlikely metaphor for a nation gone
spinning from its bearings. The evil of it, the mind-numbing tragedy, was made
more surreal by TV satellite trucks from across the nation that clogged local
streets, and by the fact that victims and survivors became instant celebrities.
But the attention span of the news media is short, even for a tragedy of such
dimensions, and within weeks, Columbine was left to begin a journey of sorrow
and anger, faith and healing, which Wedgwood Baptist Church members and the
shooting victims will soon know well.
Many at Columbine, for instance, had a moment when their grief seemed most raw,
most crystallized. For Havens, who taught Algebra II to both young gunmen, it
was the day in early June when faculty members were allowed into the high
school for the first time.
"At that point I spent an hour just walking around, just crying by myself,"
Havens said. "I just got extremely angry at Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, even
though I had had all the feelings before.
"Every bullet hole was marked in the wall," he said. "I saw where the carpet
... had been cut out, because it was soaked with the blood of a guy I had
coached with for 20 years. I lost two members of my cross-country team, five of
my students. It was scary going back in. It's scary. It's eerie. You know, the
sadness and the anger, and about every emotion you know overcame me at that
time."
Two months later, when students returned for the new school year, the bullet
holes had been patched over. The library sat empty, its door walled off. The
first day of classes was notable for Columbine's defiant spirit. But every day
that students returned thereafter was a reminder. The wounds were still too
fresh for it to be otherwise.
Early in the school year, administrators warned students and teachers of a fire
drill. A new alarm had been implemented to spare grim memories, and it would
ring for only a few seconds. But the alarm malfunctioned, blaring for more than
a minute. Havens was among those overcome.
"It was more than I could handle," he said. "I had to leave class for 10
minutes to get alone, to get myself together. It was just too emotional."
Hannah Sheely, 16, learned of the Fort Worth shootings from a church friend
Thursday morning before classes began. Like most everyone else, she passed her
day at Columbine without discussing it. But after school, she and two friends,
Sunny Doty and Sarah Dodrill, returned to the campus, hoping to sign a T-shirt
that some church youth leaders were planning to carry to the stricken in Fort
Worth.
"I know the pain the people down there are going through," she said, standing
in the fading light of a radiant afternoon. "It saddens me terribly. I know
what they're going through. I've been there."
On April 20, Sheely was among dozens of students trapped inside Columbine for
four hours before SWAT teams could free them. She saw popular coach and
business teacher Dave Sanders shortly before Sanders was fatally shot as he
tried to save other students.
Her nightmares lasted for a month, Sheely said. She would go to the mall in her
dreams, and shootings would happen, or out to dinner, and the carnage would
follow her there, too.
"Or I would see Eric and Dylan in my sleep, and they would be taunting me," she
said. "I couldn't eat for a week. I couldn't go into public places, couldn't go
to the memorial services. I stayed home or went to church. It's a long healing
process.
"But it's a lot better now," Sheely said. "I can do stuff again."
Her advice for the victims at Wedgwood Baptist: Stay close to your faith. Don't
blame God. And lean on those who shared the horror, people who understand the
need to lay your head on a knowing shoulder and just cry.
As she and her friends waited near the school Thursday, Sarah Dodrill's mother,
Kathy Dodrill, walked up and offered additional advice to the parents of
Tarrant County. Sarah Dodrill, too, had been trapped in the school.
"The best thing to do is to spend lots and lots of time holding them," Kathy
Dodrill said. "A lot. If they let you. And be patient. It's a long process."
Sara Houy was having a good day at Columbine until lunch time Thursday, when a
church friend told her about Fort Worth. In an instant, the 16-year-old
junior's appetite was gone. Questions raced through her mind for the rest of
the day: How many were killed? How many teen-agers? Who was the gunman? Why did
it happen?
At home she went straight for the newspapers, and she spent the evening channel
surfing, looking for definitive news reports, finding instead that Hurricane
Floyd seemed a much bigger story.
"It's almost like people are getting used to the fact that things like this are
happening," Houy said Friday afternoon at her dining room table. "And that just
sickens me."
For she, too, knew the trauma of the teen-agers in Fort Worth, based on her own
experience April 20, almost too horrible for words. Just before lunch, Houy;
her older brother, Seth; and a friend were studying at a table in the library
when shots echoed outside and a teacher rushed in, warning of the approaching
gunmen.
The three of them hid beneath the table, listening as students screamed and
pleaded for their lives, listening to the shots and as Klebold and Harris
methodically went around the room, taunting their victims before killing them.
At one point, one of the killers knocked over a chair, which hit Houy in the
head. But she, her brother and the friend were spared.
"I can honestly say that God made us invisible," Houy said Friday. "There was
no other way."
The lives of Houy and her family were transformed that day. Until then they had
lived comfortably in a tranquil community. A small chain of furniture stores
owned by Houy's parents provided a comfortable income. The family's Christian
faith was strong, but largely untested. Just weeks before the shootings, Sandy
Houy, Sara's mother, thanked God for sparing her family from life's worst
trials.
Then came April 20. Then came the day in early July when Sara Houy and her
mother were allowed to re-enter the blood-stained library still in shambles,
where toppled tables were labeled with the names of victims. Sara Houy broke
down when she saw the place where her friend, Cassie Bernall, had died. And she
saw for the first time how close she herself had been to death. Four
schoolmates were slain within two feet on either side of where she lay.
For her mother, too, seeing the library was a watershed moment.
"That's when I realized that our lives are truly out of our hands," Sandy Houy
said last week. "Knowing that, I don't know how people can deal with this who
don't have a faith in God.
"I always thought that I could make everything better if I just stayed a few
steps ahead of them," she said. "It was such a helpless feeling to know they
were going through that, and I didn't even know they were doing it. I learned
who was really in charge. My worrying about them didn't do anything to protect
them. Not really."
Today, her daughter Sara rarely speaks a sentence about the horror without
invoking the name of God, too. God, she says, has been her only counselor. A
few weeks ago, she told her story at a large Christian rally in North Carolina,
and 1,000 people became converts. She said she is amazed by how such good could
come from such evil.
On April 20, Anne Marie Hochhalter was eating her lunch outside the school when
the killers approached. She was among the first hit, coming within a few
minutes of losing her life before help arrived. As it was, a bullet left her
paralyzed from the waist down.
Today, the 17-year-old attends Columbine for one class a day. Her spirits are
generally good, her father said last week. At least until she heard about the
shootings at Wedgwood Baptist.
"She was horrified by what happened, and sends her love and condolences to the
people who were affected by it," Ted Hochhalter said. "Unless you've
experienced something like this, you have no idea what an individual is going
through."
As he spoke by telephone Thursday night, his voice was thick with weariness and
sadness. Because of Anne Marie Hochhalter's paralysis, the family will be
dealing with the Columbine shooting forever, he said. The mother battles severe
depression. A younger brother was trapped in the school and struggles with
emotional scars. Healing can seem painfully slow.
"My heart goes out to the people in Fort Worth, and will continue to," Ted
Hochhalter said, "because it's like the doctor said about Anne Marie's injury:
`It's not a short race. It's a marathon.' Now they have to go back in and pick
up the pieces, and it's not an easy thing to do."
But in Fort Worth, he said, the community as a whole will rise to the occasion,
"because it's happened here for us." People still bring meals to the Hochhalter
family. People help out with laundry. Cards and letters from around the world
number in the hundreds.
"You take those things for granted, but when you're faced with a situation like
this, they become acts of generosity that can't be repaid," Hochhalter said.
So for Hochhalter and so many others here, hope lives despite the anguish. Such
is another part of the alchemy of healing. Another part of the Columbine
legacy.
"Something you can never forget is that there are many more good people in the
world than there are bad, like the one individual who did this in Fort Worth,"
Hochhalter said. "If we lose our faith, not only in God, but in the goodness of
human nature, we lose everything. Things will get better. The community in Fort
Worth will rise to the occasion and be there for those people. I believe that
from the bottom of my heart."
Cliff or Linda Griffith
> The disturbed Fort Worth native who gunned down 14 people in Wedgwood Baptist
> Church on Wednesday apparently sought some resolution when he wrote his first
> letter to the Fort Worth Star- Telegram 11 days after his father died.
>
> The lengthy, disjointed letter dated July 31 asked the newspaper "to
> investigate and tell my story."
<snip>
Newspaper editors aren't in a position to seek help for every flake who
writes a strange letter to the paper.
<snip>
> Four days after Ashbrook's father died, his brother, Aaron Ashbrook, filed a
> report with the Wise County Sheriff's Department, saying he feared his brother
> would cause harm.
>
> Aaron Ashbrook told authorities his brother was a "paranoid schizophrenic" and
> had made a threatening call to him 20 minutes earlier.
>
> "He says his brother is to be carrying a pistol," Sgt. Harlon Wright said. "He
> is afraid of his brother, afraid he's going to do something. He doesn't say
> what he's going to do."
I wonder what follow-up the sheriff made. Here was a perfect
opportunity to check the guy out. I also wonder if those women filed a
report with Ashbrook exposed himself to them in a front yard. If so,
what came of it? If not, why not? A report might have landed him in
jail, rather than free to commit these murders. I haven't seen a report
that tells *when* he exposed himself.
> That same brother has claimed responsibility for Larry Ashbrook's body, said
> Jeff Moran, an investigator with the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.
>
> No funeral arrangements have been made.
(They gave his body to a medical school.)
<snip>
> Shirley Ekwelum, a teacher and counselor in Dallas, said friends, family and
> neighbors shouldn't ignore behavioral changes that hint at future violence.
> Those signs include disrespectful behavior, acts of vandalism and disruptive
> mood swings.
>
> "Take some action," she said. "Don't sit on it."
The man's brother didn't "sit on it"; he called the police.
> However, a family member had told the Wise County Sheriff's Department that he
> was a paranoid schizophrenic, and neighbors said Ashbrook had exposed himself
> and shouted obscenities.
Linda