Matthew Murray case - Gothard shooting

[Marianne]

On December 9, 2007, 24-year-old Matthew Murray (pictured here with his niece) went on a killing spree in Colorado, opening fire in the early morning at a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) training center in Arvada and then later in the afternoon at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. His spree left 4 people dead and 5 wounded, following which he committed suicide.

 

Matthew was 1 of 2 sons born to Colorado neurologist Ronald Murray and his wife Loretta Murray. Matthew's family was a deeply religious Christian household and he and his younger brother Christopher were homeschoooled since 1990 through high school graduation using Bill Gothard's "Wisdom Booklets." His family attended Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada, a church noted for its Christian Zionism beliefs. The Murray family were members of Kevin Swanson's Christian Home Educators of Colorado, and Christopher was part of a homeschool graduation ceremony held by CHEC in 2005.

 

After being homeschooled all the way through high school, Matthew attended Arapahoe Community College and Colorado Christian University for brief periods. In 2002, he attended a YWAM missionary training program held at the same Arvada facility he attacked. He did not complete the training, however, due to several reasons: one being health problems that prevented him from doing the requisite field work; others being "strange behavior" such as talking about "hearing voices" and performing"dark rock songs" from Linkin Park that made co-workers feel "pretty scared." (Court records indicate that the Arvada attack was at least partly inspired by his anger about being expelled.)

 

Matthew was alleged to be either gay or bisexual and experienced guilt over his orientation. He felt he had to justify it through pointing to the hypocrisy of evangelical leaders like Ted Haggard. He struggled with depression, took Prozac, and was seeing a therapist. He believed his parents were simply using him as a religious weapon or tool, saying that "The only reason [my mom] had me was because she wanted a body/soul she could train into being the next Billy Graham." He claimed to suffer psychological and other forms of abuse at the hands of his parents growing up, taking particular aim at how Gothard's teachings influenced his family, at one point writing the following online:

 

"Me, I remember the beatings and the fighting and yelling and insane rules and all the Bill Gothard (expletive) and then trancing out . (expletive) . I'm still tranced out."

Gothard himself commented on the murders after the fact, saying that Matthew and his family only used his homeschooling curriculum for "several years" and that his curriculum is "all built around the Sermon on the Mount." Gothard added that Matthew's problem was that "he rejected the curriculum,"pointing to Matthew's love of rock music. "The music we listen to is a powerful force," Gothard suggested.

 

While Matthew's family did not regularly attend New Life Church, his mother Loretta considered Ted Haggard - the disgraced evangelical celebrity who founded and pastored New Life - to be her "favorite pastor." The Murray family gave money to New Life and Matthew and his mother went to a conference at the church 4 years prior to the attack.

 

On the day of the attacks, Matthew drove to the YWAM facility in Arvada in the middle of the night. After asking if he could stay the night at the facility (and being denied), Matthew pulled out his guns and opened fire. He killed 24-year-old Tiffany Johnson and 26-year-old Philip Crouse, as well as wounded 24-year-old Dan Griebenow and 22-year-old Charlie Blanch. Matthew then drove to New Life Church. Around 1 pm, Matthew began his second attack, spraying bullets at church members leaving after church service. He struck and killed two sisters, 18-year-old Stephanie Works and 16-year-old Rachel Works - who happened to be homeschooled themselves. He also wounded the sisters' father, 51-year-old David Works, as well as 40-year-old Judy Purcell and 59-year-old Larry Bourbannais.

 

Matthew's shooting rampage finally came to a halt when Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard at the church, managed to shoot and wound Matthew. Matthew then shot and killed himself.

 

In May 2008, Matthew's parents appeared on James Dobson's radio show. His father Ronald said they had "no idea he had ownership of weapons or any plan," blaming the shootings on his son's "depth of bitterness" about his Christian upbringing. That "bitterness" was expressed by Matthew himself in his handwritten "Letter to God" found in his car after the attacks. In the letter, Matthew wrote,

 

"The more I read your stupid book, the more I pray, the more I reach out to Christians for help, the more hurt and abused I get."

Following Matthew's rampage and suicide, Kevin Swanson (Director of CHEC, which the Murray family were members of) did a radio broadcast on the situation entitled, "Should Pastors Pack?"

 

http://hsinvisiblechildren.org/2014/03/ ... ew-murray/

 

Sorry If we have already discussed it !

[apple1]

Not sure if FJ ever discussed this, but if so, I don't remember it. I don't think the media connected the dots to Gothard/ATI/IBLP. The media at the time did mention homeschooling and his parents being "conservative" in a religious sense.

[Howl]

“Me, I remember the beatings and the fighting and yelling and insane rules and all the Bill Gothard (expletive) and then trancing out . (expletive). I’m still tranced out.â€

I've also wondered about the Nehemiah Griego killings in Albuquerque in early 2013. His killed his mother, father (ex gang member, prison pastor, chaplain at a homeless mission), and three siblings. An article noted that he had 5 adult siblings (from a previous wife) who were no longer living at home, although another article says the total number of children is 10. He was homeschooled, but also very active at the large church the family attended.

"Their family was involved in the local homeschooling community. In fact, the Calvary Chapel that Greg pastored at hosted New Mexico’s annual homeschooling convention"

Click here for a summary from When Homeschoolers Turn Violent, a joint research project by Homeschoolers Anonymous and Homeschooling’s Invisible Children.

From another article (full text here):

Greg Griego, according to his family, had always been a leader. People followed him – whether it was in the neighborhood near Avenida Cesar Chavez and Eighth Street SW where Greg Griego grew up with a brother, two sisters and a mother who refused welfare despite poverty, or at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center, where he spent 13 years as a jail minister.

That leadership extended to the way he raised his children and ran his household, according to the Griego family. Greg Griego was old-school.

He liked his daughters to have long hair because he thought it looked pretty, said the eldest, Annette Griego, and he liked his sons to be tough.

Greg and his wife, Sarah Griego, were loving but strict parents, according to the family. From a young age, the children were involved in the church community at Calvary of Albuquerque, where, until a recent falling out, Greg Griego had spent several years as a pastor.

The children weren’t allowed to date until reaching a certain age, family members said. That assertion contradicts BCSO statements that Nehemiah had a 12-year-old girlfriend. Officials say the boy exchanged text messages and a photograph of his dead mother with the girl on the night of the killings.

Apparently, Nehemiah has been diagnosed with mental illness and sounds like he now takes medication.

[Marianne]

Does Homeschoolers Anonymous is related to hsinvisible children ? The article on Nehemia case is the same.

[Howl]

Does Homeschoolers Anonymous is related to hsinvisible children ? The article on Nehemia case is the same.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent, a joint research project by Homeschoolers Anonymous and Homeschooling’s Invisible Children.

[Marianne]

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent, a joint research project by Homeschoolers Anonymous and Homeschooling’s Invisible Children.

Thank you !

[nana sew dear]

I remember the Colorado story from the news. The family that was shoot in the church parking lot and whose daughters were killed were all "blah, blah, blah, straight up to heaven". The security guard who was packing was delighted that she had an opportunity to serve Jesus by spraying bullets into a crowd.

[HoneyBunny]

I live midway between those two shooting sites. Reading this, I got a chill, just as I did the day when it happened (and Columbine, and the Aurora theater shootings, and last December's Arapahoe HS shooting where the shooter lived just blocks away me). I knew, that cold, sunny day when Matthew Murray did his murdering, that mental illness was almost certainly an issue, but felt just as strongly, given the targets, that over zealous Christianity was also to blame. That Got-hard claims the music was at fault makes me seethe.

[Howl]

Not meaning to detract from discussion of the Matthew Murray case -- but the Neheniah Griego shooting somehow seems germane. With the Murray case, it is apparent what his home situation was and the specifics of his parents beliefs. With the Nehemiah Griego case, as Libby Anne pointed out, the elements (seeming to point more towards Quiverfull and the Pearls) are there for those who recognize them.

Libby Anne at Love, Joy, Feminism had this to say when the Nehemiah Griego shooting happened:

Griego Family Likely Quiverfull

January 2013

There’s something very odd about opening the news and seeing clips of information that make you realize you probably have a better understanding of the backdrop of a story than do the people reporting it.

…ten children…

…unregistered homeschoolers…

…Nehemiah … Zephaniah … Jael…

…prison ministry…

Honestly, it’s like having a checklist in my head. Check. Check. Check. Check.

Yesterday tragedy visited the Griego family. Fifteen-year-old Nehemiah shot and killed both of his parents and three of his nine siblings. While the news media is not yet reporting this, the Griegos were, almost certainly, Quiverfull. The family size, their sheltered homeschool lifestyle, their names, even their high involvement in church and prison ministry. It all fits. Quiverfull. And what with the children’s names and the family’s involvement in prison ministry, I suspect that they were followers of Michael Pearl and his No Greater Joy ministries. Sure, I could be wrong about all of this, but I don’t think that’s likely. Time will tell.

Of course, I don’t know why Nehemiah killed his parents and siblings and I don’t know what went on in the Griego family. My heart goes out to all of them, most especially to the smallest of the children.

Read the text and comments here.

[BirthingGodsWarriors]

Fell through the rabbit hole on the homeschooling site. Another Gothard connected murder:

According to friends and family, Joshua Komisarjevsky was “a brilliant but troubled young man†who was “very loving, very caring.â€

Joshua was adopted at two-weeks-old by fundamentalist Christians. His father Benedict has been described as “critical, cold, and controllingâ€; the mother Jude, “quite submissive.â€

Jude homeschooled Joshua using material from the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), the homeschooling curriculum developed by Inge Cannon (the former Director of HSLDA’s National Center for Home Education) for Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles. Jude said that she and her husband Benedict “had tried to instill Christian values in the boy by pulling him out of public school and educating him at home,†but he had nonetheless “wallowed in depression†due to the death of his grandfather a year earlier and had “come under ‘satanic’ influences through other youths†in his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut. Jude said her son “was easily manipulated and controlled by others,†and she recalled going into his room at one point and “he had written over and over again on the walls: ‘death’ and ‘die’ and ‘suicide.’â€

At some point during his childhood, Joshua was raped by “someone he trusted,†allegedly a teenage child that the Komisarjevsky family had fostered. Several years later, Joshua molested his younger sister Naomi. The church that the Komisarjevsky family attended “rejected psychology, psychiatry, or any kind of mental health treatment, and so did Komisarjevsky’s parents.†When Benedict and Jude discovered the sexual abuse in the family, they did not seek any mental health treatment for either Joshua or Naomi.

Right before turning 15, Joshua set fire to a gas station. Since police recognized he had serious mental health issues, he was briefly hospitalized in a mental health hospital and given medication. However, his father did not want him on any medication, and instead sent him to a “faith-based†treatment program.

On July 23, 2007, Joshua and his friend Steven Hayes broke into the home of the Petit family — William, Jennifer, and their daughters, 17-year-old Haley and 11-year-old Michaela. Joshua and Steven held the family hostage for hours. They forced Jennifer to drive to the family’s nearby bank and withdraw $15,000 — on the threat of killing the entire family otherwise. They raped and strangled Jennifer and then sexually assaulted Michaela. William was severely beaten and tied to a post in the basement. Joshua and Steven then doused the house with gasoline and set fire to the house. Haley and Michaela died from smoke inhalation. William managed to escape.

Joshua had specifically targeted the Petit family. A day prior to the killings, he noticed Jennifer and Michaela at a grocery store. He followed them from the store home and made plans to come back the next day with Hayes.

Joshua was found guilty of murder. Evidence of “his strict Christian upbringing, his disturbed behavior as a youth and his parents’ decision not to get traditional psychological treatment for him because of their Christian beliefs†was a significant matter of discussion during his trial. In January 2012, Joshua was sentenced to death. His accomplice, Steven Hayes, was also sentenced to death.

ETA: I am not sure if this has already been discussed somewhere on FJ. Sorry in advance for double posting if it has.

[Howl]

Oh MY HOLY MOLY CRAP, BGW! That is a stunning post. I had no idea. The minute I read Petit family, I got chills. Joshua was on parole when the Petit killings took place, but I haven't been able to find anything that specifies why he was in prison/jail to begin with.

There are also numerous references to a faith-based treatment center, but I can't find out the specifics for that.

There is a bit more of his family history, based on his lawyer's perspective, here. A few highlights:

One of the most traumatic events of his life occurred after adoptive parents Ben and Jude Komisarjevsky took in a 15-year-old foster teen, who sexually abused 4-year-old Joshua Komisarjevsky.

"He burned him with cigarettes and otherwise terrorized this small child," Donovan said. "Joshua lived in fear."

Because of the family's rigid religious beliefs, the sexual abuse haunted him throughout his life, his lawyer said.

"He saw himself as a sinner because of the sexual activity thrust on him," he said.

Tragedy on so many levels.

[RachelB]

On December 9, 2007, 24-year-old Matthew Murray (pictured here with his niece) went on a killing spree in Colorado, opening fire in the early morning at a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) training center in Arvada and then later in the afternoon at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. His spree left 4 people dead and 5 wounded, following which he committed suicide.

...

Matthew’s shooting rampage finally came to a halt when Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard at the church, managed to shoot and wound Matthew. Matthew then shot and killed himself.

In May 2008, Matthew’s parents appeared on James Dobson’s radio show. His father Ronald said they had “no idea he had ownership of weapons or any plan,†blaming the shootings on his son’s “depth of bitterness†about his Christian upbringing. That “bitterness†was expressed by Matthew himself in his handwritten “Letter to God†found in his car after the attacks. In the letter, Matthew wrote,

“The more I read your stupid book, the more I pray, the more I reach out to Christians for help, the more hurt and abused I get.â€

Following Matthew’s rampage and suicide, Kevin Swanson (Director of CHEC, which the Murray family were members of) did a radio broadcast on the situation entitled, “Should Pastors Pack?â€

http://hsinvisiblechildren.org/2014/03/ ... ew-murray/

Sorry If we have already discussed it !

Not, "Should the Church Offer Better Assistance to People Who Seek Help?," but "Should Pastors Carry Guns and Shoot People?"

Yeah, Kevin Swanson took exactly the wrong message from Matthew's experience. Telling someone who is hurt and angry, "No, you're not," or, "If you're angry at the way the church has treated you, you're angry at God" is Not Helping. There were so many opportunities for that story to end differently.

[Jasmar]

I remember the Colorado story from the news. The family that was shoot in the church parking lot and whose daughters were killed were all "blah, blah, blah, straight up to heaven". The security guard who was packing was delighted that she had an opportunity to serve Jesus by spraying bullets into a crowd.

:pink-shock: what the heck? She was glad to have been able to restrain the killer by shooting. I'd have to agree with her on that one.