Area woman wounded in church shooting
Victim’s cousin among those killed in Texas attack
A Saratoga Springs-area woman is recovering from gunshot wounds sustained in Sunday’s mass shooting at church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Margie McKenzie was grazed with a bullet after a gunman entered the Baptist church outside of San Antonio, killing more than two dozen. Family memebers said she was heading back to the area Tuesday, but representatives are asking for privacy.
“Margie appreciates the outpouring of support from her friends and family. She thanks the staff at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio and everyone who helped make her trip home easier and safe. At this time, Margie would ask that the public and the media respect her privacy as she recovers from this tragedy and mourns the loss of her niece,” family spokeswoman Libby Post said in an emailed statement. “She also asks everyone to keep her niece’s two children, who were wounded, in their thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.”
McKenzie is a cousin to Saratoga County native Tim Cox, a town justice in Olive, who was in Boston for a bat mitzvah on his wife’s side of the family when he first heard a gunman had killed 26 people and wounded 20 others the church, he said by phone Tuesday. Then his parents called from their home in the Adirondack Mountains to tell Cox, 48, that his cousin Tara McNulty was one of the people who died in the massacre.
McNulty’s children, a 12-yearold boy and 15-year-old girl, were wounded in the attack, as was Cox’s cousin Margie McKenzie. He declined to provide the children’s names but noted they’re about the same age as his own two children, who had played with them at a family gathering just five years ago.
He said the boy suffered several gunshot wounds in the church attack and the girl was shot in both legs. Both are expected to survive.
Cox said McNulty was in her 30s and was not married.
“I still think of her as a kid,” he
said. “She was just a great person, raising two really great kids on her own. She was involved in the community. She had a terrific smile. Like her mom, she always had a great laugh. Our family’s heartbroken over this.”
During a church service Sunday, a man dressed in black tactical-style gear and armed with an assault rifle opened fire inside the Baptist church in the small South Texas community. The attacker, who later died of a self-inflected gunshot wound, has been identified as Devin Kelley, 26, of San Antonio.
Cox, who lives in the Olive hamlet of Shokan, said his family is “in extreme shock, to say the least.”
He said his parents were making arrangements to attend McNulty’s funeral and that he and his wife, Rebecca Balzac, were considering going to Texas, too.
Cox said he and his cousins were texting one another all day Tuesday, making plans “and figuring out who will be down there when.”
McNulty was the daughter of Cox’s first cousin, Lisa McNulty, who also lives in Sutherland Springs. Cox said Lisa and her extended family all live in the town and attend the church where the massacre occurred. Cox, who grew up in Saratoga County, said that when he was a child, “the whole Cox family would sit in two pews at the First Baptist Church in Ballston Spa. Lisa and Margie would be sitting right there with us.”
On his Facebook page Monday, Cox posted, “Very sorry to learn last night that our cousins Margie, Tara and Tara’s two children were victims in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Tara, a young lady with years of smiles left, unfortunately didn’t survive. Both children remain hospitalized and more surgeries are scheduled. Please keep them and all the victims and families in your prayers.”
“I know from experience, my wife, who’s Jewish, has law enforcement outside the [synagogue] during High Holidays,” Cox said Tuesday. “There’s a reason for that. But to have it happen during a random Sunday .... ”
Those killed Sunday ranged in age from 18 months to 77 years old. Twenty-three were found dead in the church, two were found outside, and one died after being taken to a hospital.
Cox has been an Olive town justice for 12 years. He ran unopposed in Tuesday’s election for his fourth four-year term.