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The Nation - News from March 31, 1985

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A judge in La Crosse, Wis., ruled Bryan Stanley, charged with murder in the shooting deaths of a priest and two others in a Roman Catholic church, incompetent to stand trial. The ruling halts for at least 18 months criminal proceedings against Stanley, 29, who will be re-evaluated after treatment in a mental hospital. Stanley, who reportedly objected to schoolgirls’ reading of Scripture during Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Onalaska, told Circuit Judge Peter Pappas at the hearing that he was ordered by the Lord to “assassinate the three devil-worshipers,” Father John Rossiter, 64; lay minister Ferdinand Roth, 55, and custodian William Hammes, 66.

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