New Life gunman pleaded for 'deliverance' in handwritten letter

Matthew Murray pleaded for "deliverance" in an anguish-filled letter found in his car after the Dec. 9 shooting rampage at New Life Church in northern Colorado Springs.

"Am I too lost to be saved?" the 24-year-old gunman asked at the close of the 1½ page, handwritten letter he addressed to God. "My soul cries for deliverance. I'm dieing (sic), praying, bleeding and screaming. Will I be denied?"

Colorado Springs police released the letter for the first time Wednesday. It was found among the ammunition and smoke bombs Murray left in his 2002 Toyota Camry.

The letter - unsigned and undated - was not included in a 460-page report detailing witness accounts of the shootings in Colorado Springs that day, in which the gunman killed two people and wounded two more before committing suicide.

Murray, 24, was also linked to the deadly shootings the night before at a New Life-related ministry in Arvada.

The gunman, once an aspiring missionary, inveighed against Christians in previously reported Internet messages he posted to an online forum before the attacks.

This note reveals the gunman's frustrated attempts as a believer to find the "True Way."

"WHAT IS THE TRUTH?!" he wrote. "Where or how can I find it? Where can I find the ‘real Christians.' Who are the ‘real Christians.' How can I be right with you?"

Murray used obscenity while lashing out at God and asking, "Why couldn't you write your damn book more clearly?"

He mentioned "lifelong pain" and spoke of getting "hurt and abused" when reaching out to Christians.

"I've heard good things about what Jesus can do, yet everywhere I go in Christianity, all the Christians I see or meet are miserable, angry selfish, hypocritical, proud, power hungry, abusive, uncaring, confused, lustful, greedy, unsure of their doctrine and mean-spirited."

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0366 or lance.benzel@gazette.com