By ANDREW PANTAZI and SELWYN CRAWFORD
FOREST HILL, Texas — Police worked into the night Monday trying to determine what caused a 33-year-old man to crash his car into a church here and then bludgeon the popular pastor to death with an electric guitar.
The church’s janitor was also beaten, though not severely, before the suspect died in the back of a squad car several minutes after he had been shot with a Taser gun by police.
Authorities said the Rev. Danny Kirk, 53, pastor of Greater Sweethome Missionary Baptist Church, died at the scene of the late-morning attack in the suburb on the southeast side of Fort Worth. The janitor, 59-year-old John Whitaker, was treated for a broken jaw. A church secretary locked herself in her office to escape the 11:12 a.m. attack where she was able to call 911.
Caller: “I think someone’s trying to break in … it was like a loud crash … I need an ambulance also. My pastor’s bleeding. He’s been attacked.”
Operator: “So your pastor confronted him?”
Caller: “They’re trying to fight him.”
“They’re going in and out [of the church] like they’re chasing them. … My pastor and the custodian are chasing him … it looks like he drove his car into our building.”
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