Gunman may have warned of Colorado shootings

DENVER — Between his two shooting sprees, church gunman Matthew Murray apparently posted online threats about killing Christians. But whether the warnings reached police was unclear Tuesday.

The threats and other anguished messages in the past few months were posted by someone using the screen name "nghtmrchld26." The postings paint a picture of a home-schooled Colorado man once affiliated with the Youth With a Mission program, as Murray, 24, had been. He was dismissed in 2002 for what officials called health reasons.

"I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill," one threat posted Sunday by nghtmrchld26 said.

At least one visitor to the site contacted the FBI before the second attack, the site's administrator said. The FBI would not confirm that.

Nghtmrchld26 made at least 11 posts between the two shootings on a site run by the Association of Former Pentecostals, a nonprofit group that says it was created to help people who have left Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

The threats appear to include passages lifted from a manifesto written by Eric Harris, one of the teens who carried out the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School.

Five people — including Murray, of Englewood — died and five were wounded Sunday in the attacks 12 hours and 65 miles apart. The first attack was at Youth With a Mission, a training center for missionaries in the Denver suburb of Arvada; the second was at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

An autopsy, meanwhile, determined Murray killed himself with a bullet to the head after he was shot by a volunteer security guard at the church, authorities said Tuesday.