Illinois Tragedy: Please be in prayer

Published: March 8, 2009

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A shooting during a morning church service outside St. Louis has left at least one person dead -- the church’s pastor -- and several others wounded, officials said.

Pastor Fred Winters was fatally shot by a gunman during a service Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill.

Pastor Fred Winters was at the pulpit at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill. at 8:15 a.m. CT when a man "walked down the aisle of the church," approached the pulpit and shot Winters in the chest with a .45 caliber handgun, said Trooper Ralph Timmins of the Illinois State Police, which is handling the investigation.

The gun then jammed, and the shooter then injured himself with a knife and subsequently was restrained by parishioners, Timmins said in a "preliminary release" left on his office voicemail recording. Approximately 150 people were in the church at the time.

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