The Latest: Texas church congregants say they feared gunman
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) - The Latest on the Texas church shooting (all times local):
3:20 p.m.
Longtime congregants at the small-town Texas church where a gunman's rampage left more than two dozen dead say they were afraid of the attacker.
Husband and wife Rod and Judy Green tell The Associated Press Friday that they are good friends with Devin Kelley's in-laws, and that Kelley had often exhibited troubling behavior.
Authorities have said Kelley's mother-in-law attended First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs and she'd gotten threatening texts from him.
Rod Green says that at a Christmas dinner one year, Kelley had "bragged about being armed." The Greens also said they watched Kelley closely when he showed up wearing all black last month at a festival at the church.
Judy Green says Kelley was "completely distant and way out in thought."
Kelley died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after Sunday's massacre.
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12:40 p.m.
The sanctuary of the small-town Texas church where a gunman carried out a massacre will be turned into a temporary memorial for the more than two dozen victims.
The grounds steward of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs tells The Associated Press Friday that services will never take place there again and the building will eventually be demolished.
The gunman shot and killed 25 people at the church on Sunday. Authorities have put the official toll at 26, because one victim was pregnant.
Grounds steward Rod Green says the building will be scrubbed down and the church will place 26 chairs inside to commemorate the victims.
Green says the church plans to build a new structure on church property elsewhere. Green says regular services will be held Sunday at a community hall run by a local association.
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12:15 p.m.
More than 500 people have attended a private funeral on a San Antonio-area Air Force base for a husband and wife who were among the more than two dozen killed when a gunman opened fire at a small-town Texas church.
The San Antonio Express-News reports that the service for Scott and Karen Marshall was held Thursday afternoon at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph.
Randy Martin, spokesman for the 12th Flying Training Wing, says a traditional military funeral was held for the couple, who were killed Sunday at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. The service was closed to media and the public at their family's request.
Martin told the newspaper that Karen Marshall was promoted posthumously to senior master sergeant. She had been planning to retire from the military soon. Martin said Scott Marshall, already a military retiree, was a civilian employee at the base.
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12:05 p.m.
Medical officials say 11 people remain hospitalized with wounds from Texas church shooting that left more than two dozen dead remain hospitalized.
Conditions of the patients at two San Antonio hospitals range from good to critical. They were among those wounded when a gunman opened fire at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs last Sunday. The gunman died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being chased by bystanders and crashing his car.
Brooke Army Medical Center on Friday reported having seven patients from the church. The hospital says patients include five adults and two children.
University Health System had four patients, two of whom are children.
Officials at both hospitals declined to release more specific information on the wounded patients.
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10:05 a.m.
A weekly food pantry has resumed operations at a site next to the Texas church that less than a week ago endured the state's worst mass shooting.
The pantry's director, Lula White, was among the more than two dozen killed Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherlands Springs. White was also the 71-year-old grandmother of the gunman's wife.
On Friday, people crowded the small space, tearfully hugging and filling bags with donated bakery goods, groceries and used clothing. As 68-year-old Brandy Johnson walked in, she exclaimed she could "see Lu at the desk."
Husband and wife, Rod and Judy Green, have operated the pantry for 11 years. They were married at First Baptist but didn't attend the service that Devin Kelley brought to an untimely end with semi-automatic gunfire.
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12:04 a.m.
Some gave blood. Others stocked the food pantry.
Residents and neighbors of Sutherland Springs volunteered Thursday as a way help the tiny Texas community recover from the shooting at a Baptist church that left more than two dozen dead.
Twenty-year-old Karyssa Calbert of neighboring Floresville, who is six months pregnant, could not give blood but came to give moral support. She says people are doing what they can, "but honestly everyone feels so helpless."
The pastor of the First Baptist Church says that the church will be demolished. Members and visitors say the congregation should continue but not in the same building. One assistant to the congregation says she and others are trying to figure out a temporary solution to keep it going, perhaps in another building.