By JULIET WILLIAMS and RYAN NAKASHIMA, Associated Press Writers
BROOKFIELD, Wis. - The man who fatally shot seven people during a quiet church service before turning the gun on himself was on the verge of losing his job and upset over a sermon he heard two weeks ago, investigators said Sunday.
Terry Ratzmann, 44, left no suicide note and gave no explanation for the killings during Saturday's weekly meeting at a suburban Milwaukee hotel. It was unclear what specifically upset him, but Ratzmann was a member of the Living Church of God, a denomination whose leader recently prophesied that end times are near.
Fifty to 60 people were at the service when it turned into a bloodbath. Ratzmann, a buttoned-down churchgoer known for sharing his homegrown vegetables with his neighbors, walked into the room and fired 22 rounds from a 9mm handgun. He even dropped a magazine and reloaded another.
One of Ratzmann's friends begged him to stop, calling him by name and saying, "Stop, stop, why?" police Capt. Phil Horter said. Chandra Frazier dove under a chair. The man sitting in it died.
"I just remember crawling on the carpet and just praying, screaming out and praying," Frazier told "Good Morning America" on Sunday.
After killing seven people and wounding four others, Ratzmann took his own life, leaving four rounds in his gun, police said.
Wait, it's not possible that this man killed seven people and then himself - there's no evidence that loud music, porn, or violent video games were involved!
What do people expect when you pound into their heads crap like the "end times"? Is anybody going to investigate the effect of dangerous religious beliefs on the unstable? Lots of schizphrenics think the voices they hear are from God. We have a guy in the Whitehouse that thinks he was appointed by God. All this religious nuttery is getting out of hand.
Of course, gun-nuttery has to play a role into this as well. Who brings a gun to church who isn't a professional peace officer? And if one hates the sermon, you would just quit, wouldn't you? But perhaps there's more to the story than that. Perhaps there was psychological manipulation, paranoia, or a power struggle. We will see.
