Wedgwood Baptist Church Shooting — Larry Gene Ashbrook (September 15, 1999)
Overview
Larry Gene Ashbrook, aged 47, carried out a mass shooting and murder-suicide on the evening of September 15, 1999, at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. The attack occurred during a "See You at the Pole" youth rally featuring a concert by the Christian rock group Forty Days. Armed with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and a .380-caliber handgun, Ashbrook fired at congregants, killed seven people (four of them teenagers), wounded seven more, and then fatally shot himself. He also deployed a pipe bomb inside the church, though it caused no fatalities.
Victims
- Kristi Kathleen Beckel, 14 (teenager)
- Joseph Daniel “Joey” Ennis, 14 (teenager)
- Cassandra Fawn Griffin, 14 (teenager)
- Justin Michael “Stegner” Ray, 17 (teenager)
- Shawn Christopher Brown, 23 (adult)
- Susan Kimberley “Kim” Jones, 23 (adult)
- Sydney Rochelle Browning, 36 (adult)
Injuries
- Seven additional people were wounded during the shooting; ages ranged approximately from 12 to early 40s.
- One major injury: Justin Laird, aged 16 on that day, was shot in the spine and became paralyzed from the chest down.
...Read More
Account
