A year after shooting, members have learned compassion, pastor says

MILWAUKEE -- Prosecutors ended their investigation Tuesday into a shooting at a Wisconsin church service without determining why the gunman carried out a vendetta against the pastor from Gurnee and his family before shooting eight others and killing himself.

People who knew the shy computer `nerd' can't reconcile the churchgoer with the man who killed 7 near Milwaukee

Doctrine shift in '90s had shattering effect

Churchgoers honor Ratzmann's 'good'

MILWAUKEE - A man who fatally shot seven fellow church members and then killed himself had a history of depression and disagreed with his pastor, his mother told a medical examiner.

'Something tragically wrong' in Ratzmann's life, minister says

When a parishioner went on a shooting rampage during a church service in the Milwaukee suburbs this past weekend, his inexplicable violence put a spotlight on the Living Church of God, a tenacious community of about 7,000 believers that has struggled through a series of crises over the last 20 years, ever since the death of its founder.

Strict beliefs could have upset gunman, some members say

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) -- Investigators trying to figure out why a man opened fire during a church service last weekend, killing seven parishioners and himself, effectively ruled out the possibility Wednesday that he was set off by something he heard in a sermon two weeks earlier.

The citizens of Milwaukee and the United States were stunned by the unprecedented shooting of 11 members of the Living Church of God during their regularly scheduled sabbath worship services on March 12, 2005, at the Sheraton Hotel in Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The gunman, Terry Ratzmann, was a member of the church facing unemployment and other stresses. Without speaking a word, he killed 7 people, including the pastor and his son, and wounded four others. Ratzmann emptied nearly two clips of a 9mm handgun, apparently shooting at random, and then committed suicide with the remaining bullet. 

It has been 10 years since David Fiedler pastored to Terry Ratzmann.

Pastor, family called targets

The founder of the Living Church of God said Sunday that the church is opposed to all violence and if the man who killed seven church members on Saturday in Brookfield was motivated by any sort of religious feeling, he was acting against church beliefs.

CHICAGO, March 14 - The police said Monday that they were increasingly focused on religion as the motive for a man's murderous rampage through a church service on Saturday at a suburban Milwaukee hotel, promising a full investigation even though the killings ended in suicide.