Last of 7 Funerals Held for Church Shooting Victims

The last of seven funerals held for the victims in a Texas church shooting were conducted Monday, with mourners lamenting the loss of three innocent children.

At Wedgwood Baptist Church, a standing room only crowd packed the bullet-scarred sanctuary to remember Cassandra Griffin, 14, who was among those killed by an apparently deranged gunman Wednesday.

Larry Gene Ashbrook killed seven people attending a youth service, then turned the gun on himself.

“What a special girl she was,” Carolyn Jackson, a family friend, said after the service for the victim. “She was quiet, but she was powerful in her own right.”

Mourners have heaped flowers, stuffed animals, balloons and notes around the church’s lawn. Some people leaving the funeral signed a large poster that also rests there.

Near the church, someone had parked a pickup truck and covered its windows with white-painted slogans: “Rule heaven, Cassie” and “Cassie always in our hearts.”

Hundreds of people also gathered at the First Baptist Church in nearby White Settlement on Monday to remember Joseph Ennis, 14, an only child who dreamed of joining the NBA. Friends said he was a curious, searching teenager who only recently joined the Baptist church.

And at a service at Bethesda Community Church in suburban Haltom City, Wedgwood Baptist’s pastor, the Rev. Al Meredith, remembered 14-year-old Kristi Beckel as a girl who loved “I Love Lucy” reruns, volleyball and singing.

“We’re crying, not for Kristi. She is with the Lord. She can spike every ball that comes over the net now. She can sing bass if she wants to, and first soprano. Her joy is unspeakable,” Meredith told the mourners.

At Wedgwood, where the congregation returned for worship for the first time on Sunday, folding chairs replaced blood-soaked pews removed for repair. Bare cement floors lay exposed where bloodstained carpet had been removed.

Teenagers from several churches were attending a Christian music concert when Ashbrook, 47, walked in and began shooting. He killed three adult youth workers and four teenagers before taking his own life. Seven people were injured; three remained hospitalized on Monday.

Funerals were held Saturday for the other victims.

“We must forgive,” Meredith said during Sunday church services. “I hold no rancor in my heart for the family of Larry Ashbrook. The poor man was deranged; his mind had been twisted by heaven knows what. He’s in the power of the prince of darkness.”