ABC News: Answers Sought After Church Group Shooting

Terry Ratzmann, a buttoned-down churchgoer known for sharing homegrown vegetables with his neighbors, walked into the room and police said he shot 22 bullets from a 9 mm handgun within a minute.

None of those who knew him expected Ratzmann to be violent. Neighbors said he was quiet and devout, that he liked to tinker about his house and garden. He would even release the chipmunks caught in traps he set in his yard.

But Saturday, the Sabbath for the Living Church of God, Ratzmann turned on worshippers.

“He wasn’t a dark guy. He was average Joe,” said Shane Colwell, a neighbor who knew Ratzmann for about a decade. “It’s not like he ever pushed his beliefs on anyone else.”

The 44-year-old computer technician lived with his mother and sister in a modest home about two miles from the suburban Milwaukee hotel where police say he opened fire during service.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based Living Church of God is a denomination that grew out of a schism in the Worldwide Church of God, formed in 1933, and focuses on “end-time” prophecies.

This year, the group’s leader, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are “beginning to occur with increasing frequency.” The church has an estimated 6,300 members in 40 countries. …

“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

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Hence, the shock that came when police in Wichita, Kan., announced on Feb. 26 that he is BTK – the initials stand for Bind, Torture, Kill – architect of a murder spree that has claimed 10 lives and terrorized Kansans since 1974. Rader, we are told, was the very epitome of ordinary. He was a 59-year-old Boy Scout leader, a married father, council president of the Lutheran Church he has attended for more than 25 years and a compliance inspector for suburban Park City, where he was in charge of, among other things, animal control.

Two men. One a long time brutal serial killer, the other a spur-of-the-moment mass murderer. Both devout, regular church goers; one born-again, looking forward to the End of Days.

I do not mean to suggest that church goers are bad people. I wish to stress that going to church isn’t proof of one’s goodness — nor does it necessarily even prevent evil. I’m tired of the suggestion that I may lack values because I don’t go to chuch. Look who does. mjh