Police: Third victim has died in Alabama church shooting
VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. — A third elderly church member who was shot when a man pulled out a handgun during a potluck dinner has died, police said Friday.
The 84-year-old woman died hours after being rushed to a hospital following the Thursday evening shooting at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills. The suspect, a 71-year-old man, was subdued and held by a person attending the dinner until police arrived, sparing the congregation from further violence, police Capt. Shane Ware said.
“It was extremely critical in saving lives,” Ware told a news conference.
Ware said the suspect and the three victims were all white.
The woman who died Friday was not immediately identified. Vestavia Hills police said in a Facebook post that her name was being withheld because her family requested privacy.
Walter Bartlett Rainey, 84, of Irondale was killed at the church and Sarah Yeager, 75, of Pelham died soon after being taken to a hospital Thursday.
Rainey’s family said in a statement Friday that it was hard to believe he had been killed at one of his favorite places, a church that “welcomes everyone with love,” while attending a dinner with his wife of 61 years.
“We are all grateful that she was spared and that he died in her arms while she murmured words of comfort and love into his ears,” said the statement provided by Rainey’s daughter, Melinda Rainey Thompson.
“We are proud that in his last act on earth, he extended the hand of community and fellowship to a stranger, regardless of the outcome,” Rainey’s family said.
Police are still investigating what motivated the suspect, who occasionally attended services at the church, Ware said. He said the man’s name is being withheld until prosecutors formally charge him with capital murder.
The event was a “Boomers Potluck” gathering, according to messages posted on the church’s Facebook page by the Rev. John Burruss, the pastor. He said he was in Greece on a pilgrimage and trying to get back to Alabama.
Vestavia Hills Mayor Ashley Curry told reporters his community had been rocked by “this senseless act of violence.” The bedroom community is one of the wealthiest cities in Alabama. It has nearly 40,000 residents, most of whom are white.
Several high-profile shootings in May and June have included a racist attack on May 14 that killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The following week, a gunman massacred 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Thursday’s shooting happened just over a month after one was killed and five injured when a man opened fire on Taiwanese parishioners at a church in California. It comes nearly seven years to the day after an avowed white supremacist killed nine people during Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.