Links Between Colorado Christian Shootings?

Police are investigating whether there are links between the murder of two Christian missionairies in a Denver surburb and a shooting at a megachurch in Colorado Springs, which resulted in two more dead.

Police were searching a home in Englewood, about 15 miles south of Denver, early today in connection with the shootings. Even the bushes in front of the house were seen being scrutinized, The A.P. reported. The two shootings — at a missionary training center near Denver and at an evangelical megachurch in Colorado Springs — were 12 hours and 70 miles apart. They turned a quiet Sunday of fellowship into a day of high drama and gunfire, with bystanders running for cover, swarms of police officers rushing to the scenes, followed by lockdowns, evacuations and a manhunt for the gunman who got away after the first attack.

That shooting occurred about 12:30 a.m. in Arvada, 15 miles west of Denver, at a dormitory of Youth With a Mission, an interdenominational Christian organization with hundreds of centers around the country that train young people for short-term missionary service around the world.

Witnesses said the gunman, in his 20s and wearing a dark jacket and a dark skullcap, spoke to several staff members, insisting that he was not homeless and asking to spend the night. After a 30-minute discussion grew heated, he was turned away. When a staff member asked for help from others to usher him out, he drew a handgun, shot a woman and a man to death and wounded two other staff members.

He fled on foot into the snowy night, witnesses said. As ambulances rushed the wounded away, heavily armed police teams with dogs searched the snow-covered ground of surrounding neighborhoods while local residents locked their doors and windows. But no trace of the man was found in the area.

Just over 12 hours later in Colorado Springs, an hour’s drive to the south of Arvada, a gunman also clad in dark clothing invaded the grounds of the New Life Church, a 14,000-member institution founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who resigned in disgrace last year after acknowledging a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute.

Wearing combat boots and carrying an assault rifle and at least one pistol, the gunman, apparently without provocation, opened fire in a parking lot and shot four people, one of them fatally, as bystanders dashed for cover. There were about 7,000 worshipers inside the church when the shooting erupted, a church official said.

One of the victims injured in that attack died on Sunday night, said Amy Sufak, a spokeswoman for Penrose Community Hospital in Colorado Springs.

The Colorado Springs chief of police, Richard Myers, said that after the parking-lot shootings the assailant ran into the 10,000-seat church with his high-powered rifle, and was confronted by an armed church security guard, who shot and killed him. Neither the gunman nor the victims in Colorado Springs were immediately identified by the authorities.

A female security guard killed the shooter in Colorado Springs and saved countless others by her quick thinking and training. The Colorado Springs New Life Church beefed up security following the incident at the Youth With a Mission dormitory earlier that day. The decision to increase security was the right one.

The gunman was apparently wearing a tactical helmet and body armor.

UPDATE:
The identities of the victims at the New Life Church have been released, but the identity of the shooter remains a mystery.

UPDATE:
CNN is reporting that the alleged gunman in the shootings at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is 23-year-old Matthew Murray.

UPDATE:
Murray appears to have had links to the shooting at the missionary as well.

Local news organizations are reporting that the gunman has been identified as Matthew Murray. None of the reports cite a verifiable source for this information.

CNN says he worked on a mission with the first group that was targeted during yesterday's shooting sprees. The all-news station says he was carrying some 500 rounds of ammunition.

"Murray was home schooled and his last known address was at his parents' home in unincorporated Arapahoe County – the same home investigators searched Sunday night," KUSA-TV reports on its website.

UPDATE:
Still nothing definitive linking the two shootings, but there are some interesting bits coming out that suggest there was some kind of a link.

Although it's not known if the shootings are connected, New Life Church and Youth With A Mission are connected in several ways. There is a Youth With A Mission office on the New Life Church campus, and many members of New Life have completed the YWAM's school and discipleship programs. They have also worked together in local evangelical outreach programs.

UPDATE:
CNN is now reporting that Murray was the shooter in both incidents according to sources.