SHOOTING AT EAST TEXAS CHURCH LEAVES PASTOR DEAD, 2 INJURED
A pastor was killed and two people were injured in a shooting at a Texas church Sunday. The pastor was killed with his own gun after the suspect disarmed him and shot him, authorities said.
Mytrez Deunte Woolen, 21, was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of capital murder, Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith said Sunday evening.
The shooting, at Starrville Methodist Church, about 100 miles east of Dallas, occurred just after 9 a.m. when about four people were in the church, authorities said.
The Rev. Mark Allen McWilliams, 62, of Frankston, found Woolen hiding in a bathroom stall and drew his weapon, Smith told reporters. The pastor ordered the man to get on the ground, but when McWilliams began speaking with his wife, Woolen lunged at him, disarming him and shooting him, Smith said.
Two other people sustained non-life-threatening injuries: An unnamed victim was shot, and the pastor’s wife fell during the shooting.
Woolen f led in the pastor’s truck with the church’s bank bag, Smith said. Police tracked and detained Woolen, who also had a gunshot wound.
Police think Woolen was hiding in the church Saturday night after he evaded a chase with police officers and subsequently ran off the road near the church. They suspect that the “criminal episode” began in the city of Marshall, where Woolen is a suspect in a drive-by shooting of a home, about 5 p.m. Then, in Lindale, 911 callers told law enforcement officials that a driver brandished a shotgun out of the sunroof of a dark Volkswagen Jetta.