Demons haunted Colorado gunman’s world

The post includes biographical information that matches Murray’s background — including his involvement in Youth With a Mission, which ran the training center he targeted in last weekend’s rampage.

Other posts also complain of an overbearing mother. At one point, the author said his mother patted him down for CDs, video games and DVDs whenever he returned from an electronics store. In another, the author lambasts Bill Gothard, a Christian evangelist who developed a strict Bible-based home school curriculum.

Kevin Swanson, executive director of the Christian Home Educators of Colorado, of which the Murrays were members, said just 1 percent or 2 percent of the group’s 16,000 families use the curriculum described in the posts.

Swanson said homeschooling should not be considered the cause of Murray’s downward spiral, just as public schools shouldn’t be blamed for a recent shooting rampage at an Omaha mall.

On another Web posting, a person believed to be Murray said that his post-graduation options were limited to missionary work or attending Oral Roberts University, the flagship university of charismatic Christianity. A fast-growing subset of evangelical Christians, charismatics and Pentecostals believe the Holy Spirit continues to show signs and wonders in the world, including speaking in tongues, prophesy and miraculous healings.

Murray ended up enrolled in “disciple training school,” a sort of Missionary 101 program run by Youth With a Mission, one of the world’s largest evangelical Christian mission groups.

A troubled man emerges
But warning signs soon emerged at the residential program in Arvada, a Denver suburb.

A former YWAM staff member, Michael Werner, told The Rocky Mountain News that Murray was painfully shy and had trouble socializing after growing up sheltered. Later, he exhibited extreme mood swings, spreading rumors about homosexuality at the center and performing dark rock songs by Marilyn Manson and Linkin Park at a 2002 Christmas celebration.

One night, Werner said Murray was chattering to himself and explained he was “just talking to my voices.”

Murray was to take a mission trip to Bosnia, but YWAM officials said he was kicked out of the program for unspecified “health reasons.”

Murray directed his anger toward Christianity and religion in general. Posting on a suicide chat group, a user who went by “dyingchild_65” pledged to “make a stand for the weak and defenseless ... this is for all the young people still caught in the Nightmare of Christianity ... for all those people.”

He fixated on people and groups that explore the dark side of spirituality, becoming obsessed with the satanic lyrics of Swedish metal bands.

Murray attended events held by the Denver-based occult group Ad Astra Oasis during the last two years, but was turned down when he sought to become a member of the group. His involvement with them apparently ended in October.

Ultimately, Murray’s rage took him to the front steps of his former YWAM dormitory and New Life Church.

The senior pastor of New Life, Brady Boyd, said he believes his church might have been an “ignition point” for a man with long-standing emotional problems. While Boyd said it was sad that the gunman was raised in the Christian faith and turned against it, he believes the rampage had less to do with faith than with Murray’s “organic makeup.”

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