Gunman’s parents say he slept in own bed between shootings

9news.com
February 27, 2008

COLORADO SPRING The parents of a gunman who went on a shooting rampage at two religious campuses say they were not “clued in” to the depths of his bitterness. The parents of Matthew Murray talked to 9Wants to Know through their spokeswoman, saying they are finally ready to talk about their struggle.In December, Murray, 24, killed two staffers at a missionary training school in Arvada and two teenage sisters outside New Life Church in Colorado Springs the next morning.In between the shootings, Ronald and Loretta Murray say he came home to sleep in his own bed. They talked to him that night and had an inclination that something was wrong.Ronald called Matthew from a business trip about 1:30 a.m., two hours after the attack at Youth With a Mission in Arvada and said Matthew seemed agitated and out of breath. He told his father he’d been in an altercation at an Applebees restaurant.The next morning, Loretta says she thought Matthew was going to church when he left the house. Police later discovered he drove to New Life Church and killed two people before taking his own life.Ronald said his son “had never expressed a desire for violence toward anybody,” and that neither he nor Matthew’s mother knew he owned weapons. “We were not clued in to the depth of his bitterness.” The Murrays say Matthew was laid off a few months before the shootings. They say he was upset that the computer company where he worked let him go because there wasn’t enough work.Matthew had told his parents the night of the shootings in Arvada that he was going out with friends that night for his birthday. The cousin called Loretta just before midnight, sharing his concern about Matthew’s emotional state.She said she prayed; called her husband, who was out of town on a business trip; and urged him to call their son. She then broke down in tears, “crying out to God for Matthew.”

In Internet writings Matthew had been posting for months before the shooting, he raged against his strict religious upbringing and home schooling. His parents say they do not believe the home schooling had anything to do with the violence.

They said they taught him about generosity, truthfulness and forgiveness.

“Matthew even talked to us just a few months ago about how much he enjoyed home school,” said Ronald.

He had even sent his mother a card on Mother’s Day thanking her for the home schooling.

Ronald and Loretta Murray will talk more about their son Thursday and Friday on a Focus on the Family radio program. They did the interview with the family of Rachel and Stephanie Works, the two girls who were killed at New Life Church.

In the Focus on the Family interview, Stephanie’s twin sister, Laurie, tells the Murrays that as she cowered in the family’s van, she forgave the shooter she didn’t even know.

“Your loss is more than mine,” she told the Murrays.

David Works, the girls’ father, said forgiveness was simply part of the Christian walk, something that keeps bitterness from taking over.

“Without forgiveness,” Ronald said. “I don’t think we could have moved on.”

They said they had no hint of anything at all in the days before the shootings. They didn’t know about his weapons or any of his plans.

In a portion of the interview cut from the radio show because of time constraints, Loretta Murray describes her son calling a cousin in Salt Lake City shortly before the shooting at the missionary training center and “pouring out his heart” about how depressed and lonely he was.

“He was told he was loved every day,” Ronald said. “… There were people reaching out to him and he didn’t reach back.” What his son ultimately did “just was not Matthew.”

During the interview, the Murrays spoke repeatedly of their strong Christian faith, with Ronald saying that he “saw evil manifested” in his son’s acts, reconfirming for him that “every word in the Bible is true.”

Murray’s parents say to their knowledge, Murray was not on any prescription medication, but they say he suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and had taken Ritalin in the past.

Murray’s parents say he stopped taking that at his own request six years before the shootings.

An autopsy on his body found he had ingested amphetamine and the tranquilizer benzodiazepine, which is sold under several brand names – including Xanax.

Murray’s parents say they didn’t know he was the gunman in both shootings until late Sunday night when, after searching the family home, officers told them their son was dead and they believed he was the gunman in both incidents.

They believe their son had problems communicating and writing because of his ADHD, was brilliant at computers, and felt rejected and marginalized, unable to forgive his perceived tormentors.

“The lesson is that unforgiveness leads to this bitterness and then opens you up to the spirit of Satan, to the spirit of whatever, and when that occurs, it becomes a power that people cannot control,” said Ronald, a neurologist. “It will begin to control you … and I think that’s what happened with Matthew.”