Suddenly, the Stranger Fired

It was the cigarette dangling from the lips of the stranger that gave Jaynanne Brown the bad feeling. You don’t walk into Wedgwood Baptist Church with a lit cigarette in your mouth.

“I thought, uh-oh, something’s wrong,” the 41-year-old Brown said Thursday. She had been sitting in the church foyer, waiting with friends for adult choir practice to begin, when the gaunt man strode in.

One of the men in her group, seminary student Jeff Lester, rose to ask the stranger to put out his cigarette. Lester was the first to go down, wounded in the belly.

Brown probably was the next to be hit, the back of her skull creased by a 9-millimeter bullet. And as she lifted her hand to her burning head, she saw her best friend, Sydney Browning, 36, the children’s choir director, slumping on the sofa beside her.

“I knew right away Sydney wasn’t going to get up,” Brown said, stifling a hard, quick sob. “It was time for me to run.”

It was shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday, and Larry Gene Ashbrook was just beginning to terrorize parishioners, eyewitnesses and police said. The kids would come next.

And with the church a hive of activity, no one would be quite sure what had happened until the last report came from Ashbrook’s gun and the 47-year-old loner fell dead.

After Sunday, Wednesday is the biggest day of the week for most Southern Baptists, with the faithful gathering for a midweek recharging of their spiritual batteries. This Wednesday was extra special.

It was “See You at the Pole” day, an annual celebration where about 3 million Christian teenagers in 20 countries gather around school flagpoles to reaffirm their faith and pray for themselves and for the world. The event began in 1990, a few miles from here, at a Southern Baptist church in the suburb of Burleson.

Immersed in the Spirit

The young and faithful here take it seriously. So by the time about 150 teens and young adults made their way that evening to the Wedgwood sanctuary for a concert by the Christian rock band Forty Days, many had already had a full day of Southwest-style worship.

When the band turned it up after a few songs and launched into another anthem, Brown’s children--15-year-old Cody and 13-year-old Holly--and just about everyone else were so full of the spirit that they were either singing or praying or both.

The pop, pop, pops that came first from the rear of the sanctuary, the shattering glass and the man dressed in black--well, that had to be part of the show. It wasn’t very funny, but it had to be a scary little stunt to remind them of the preciousness of life, to put the fear of God in a rock concert crowd.

“I was about to be very upset with the youth minister for pulling a skit like this,” 19-year-old Trey Herweck told the local NBC affiliate.

Some kids thumbed through their programs to find this part. Others faced the gunman and cried out: “I’ll stand for Jesus!”

Ashbrook seemed confused and enraged by the challenges, witnesses said. He began pacing the aisles and targeting those who shouted out. “Stay still!” he screamed.

As the shots continued and worshipers fell, the truth began to work its way through the music and the mood. Many in the crowd hunkered down behind pews. But “people weren’t running and trying to escape,” said Assistant Police Chief Ralph Mendoza on Thursday. “They thought it was part of the program . . . and that made them more vulnerable.”

Ashbrook pulled a pipe bomb from his pocket, lit the fuse and rolled it toward the bandstand, where it exploded with a muffled thud.

Then he resumed shooting.

He emptied at least three 15-round magazines in the sanctuary. He killed a 14-year-old high school freshman who’d just made his school’s basketball team.

He also killed a 23-year-old seminary student. When Wedgwood Pastor Al Meredith went to identify her body at the morgue, he “couldn’t be sure it was her because she wasn’t smiling.”

Ashbrook killed three other teenagers and wounded seven more, one of whom is likely to be paralyzed from the waist down.

Then he went to a pew in the very back of the sanctuary and shot himself in the head.

*

Times researcher Lianne Hart contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Mass Shootings This Year

Some other major multiple shootings in 1999:

Location: Medical Center

Toll*: 3 dead

City: Anaheim

Date: Sept. 15 Source of weapons: Unknown

Location: Community Center, neighborhood

Toll*: 1 dead, 3 wounded

City: Los Angeles

Date: Aug. 10

Source of weapons: Purchased illegally

Location: Businesses

Toll*: 3 dead

City: Pelham, Ala.

Date: Aug. 5

Source of weapons: Unknown

Location: Brokerage firms

Toll*: 9 dead, 13 wounded

City: Atlanta

Date: July 29

Source of weapons: Purchased legally, illegally

Location: Home

Toll*: 7 dead, 1 wounded

City: Atlanta

Date: July 12

Source of weapons: Unknown

Location: Clinic

Toll*: 2 dead, 4 wounded

City: Southfield, Mich.

Date: June 11

Source of weapons: Purchased legally

Location: Grocery store

Toll*: 4 dead, 1 wounded

City: Las Vegas

Date: June 3

Source of weapons: Purchased legally

Location: High School

Toll*: 6 wounded

City: Conyers, Ga.

Date: May 20

Source of weapons: Stolen from stepfather’s locked gun cabinet

Location: High School

Toll*: 13 dead, 21 wounded

City: Littleton, Colo.

Date: April 20

Source of weapons: Purchased legally by friends; one purchased illegally

Location: Library

Toll*: 2 dead, 4 wounded

City: Salt Lake City

Date: April 15

Source of weapons: Purchased illegally

Location: Law firm

Toll*: 2 dead

City: Johnson City, Tenn.

Date: March 18

Source of weapons: Unknown

* Death toll does not include shooters

Sources: Associated Press, Times wire reports

Compiled by JOHN JACKSON / Los Angeles Times