Following up my previous post: someone on the IMDb who is a relative
of
Cranshaw's related the news that his son shot and killed several people
in
the small town of Sage, Texas before turning the gun on himself last
September. I haven't been able to find a news story to confirm this.
This is probably the story-
Gunman kills self after shooting four at rural church
LAST UPDATE: 8/30/2005 4:08:25 AM
SASH, Texas (AP) - Dorothy Pior points to where bullets ricocheted off
her house as a one-armed gunman chased a couple from the Sash Assembly
of God church parking lot during a shooting rampage that left four dead
before he took his own life.
Pior and her husband, Grady, weren't home Sunday night when the
shooting began, but when they returned home and saw sheriff's deputies
cars blocking the road to their house, they feared the worst.
Pior said she turned to her husband and said: "Oh my God, Grady. He's
cracked."
She was talking about her next-door neighbor, Freddie Cranshaw, who in
recent months had threatened the Piors and church members by shouting
obscenities at them, leaving strange notes on car windshields and
shooting his gun in the air from his yard.
Cranshaw, 54, gunned down pastor James Armstrong and church leader Wes
Brown in the church parking lot before heading down the road, where he
shot and killed two women who had stopped their truck and horse trailer
at an intersection not too far from the church.
"They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Fannin County
sheriff Kenneth Moore said.
Cranshaw then barricaded himself in his house across the street from
the church, shooting at officers during a nine-hour standoff that ended
Monday when he shot himself in the head.
The couple who escaped, Debbie and Kenneth Wolfe, called 911, and told
officers that they last saw the pastor's wife taking shelter behind a
travel trailer on the church property - the Armstrong's home. She
survived the shooting.
"I know the man walked back and forth several times shooting," Debbie
Wolfe told The Paris (Texas) News. "The Lord protected her."
The Wolfes said Cranshaw approached them, the Armstrongs and Brown as
they stood outside the church talking after services, church spokesman
Larry Allgood said. Cranshaw and Brown exchanged words, and then Brown
asked Cranshaw to leave.
Cranshaw, who was missing part of his right arm because of an apparent
birth defect, returned a short time later and shot Brown, 61, and then
Armstrong, 42. He then chased the Wolfes, who ran about a half-mile
through a wooded area to Wolfe's grandmother's house, The Paris News
reported.
The women who were shot - Ceri Litterio, 46, of Fannin County and Holly
Love Brown, 50, of Greenville - were two friends who were returning
home after a weekend of riding horse trails together, Moore said. Holly
Brown is not related to Wes Brown, Moore said.
When Cranshaw began shooting at their truck, the women vainly tried to
escape out the passenger's side, witnesses told police.
"The witnesses said they could hear the women screaming," Moore said.
Along the way, Cranshaw's bullets hit the Piors' home - two shots on
their porch steps, one on a border around a window, another on a spot
below another window.
The couple said they had called police a couple of times about
Cranshaw's disturbing behavior. He would shout obscenities at them and
fire a gun while standing in his own yard. But authorities never
arrested Cranshaw, since he stayed within the bounds of his property,
Grady Pior said.
Pior said he'd even started carrying a gun with him when he mowed his
yard in case he had a confrontation with Cranshaw.
"He's the only person in my life that I've had a strange feeling
about," Pior said.
After talking with church members, the Piors said they learned that
Cranshaw had left rambling, nonsensical notes on their cars, and would
curse and yell at them as they were leaving services.
Cranshaw, who at one time lived in Garland and worked on radios for
antique cars, moved into the home about 2 1/2 years ago, Pior said.
Cranshaw had become reclusive in the past six months, staying in his
home for weeks at a time, he said.
Pior said he feels that if he and his wife had been home Sunday night,
Cranshaw would've come after them.
"He wasn't normal, but he knew right from wrong. He was more like a
bully," Dorothy Pior said.
During the long standoff, a 10-member SWAT team made two attempts to
enter the home, but retreated when Cranshaw shot at them, Moore said.
Police finally entered the house about 6 a.m. after firing tear gas
inside.
Cranshaw was found in a bedroom with a gunshot wound to head, Moore
said. A 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, the same type of gun used to shoot
the women, was found near his right hand, along with his prothesis for
his arm, Moore said. A .38-caliber revolver, the kind used to shoot the
church members, was found inside the home, as well as a shotgun, a
rifle and ammunition for each.
Moore said the shootings have obviously shaken Sash, a community of 300
people about 120 miles north of Dallas, near the Oklahoma state line.
"It's a tragic situation," Moore said. "It's tragic for the people who
live in the community, and it's tragic for law enforcement too."
