>> MARYVILLE, Ill. - Illinois State Police say a pastor was shot and
>> killed Sunday morning by an assailant at an 8 a.m. worship service.

>> In a telephone interview, Jeff Ross, a lay minister at the First
>> Baptist Church of Maryville, Ill., said Senior Pastor Fred Winters
>> was shot to death after he was hit in the heart and the neck.

>> "He's gone home to be free with the Lord," Ross said.

>> Parishioners tackled the gunman, who wounded himself with a knife,
>> state police told CNN.

>> Master Trooper Ralph Timmins says the man walked down the aisle
>> during the service, exchanged words with the pastor, then drew a
>> .45-caliber handgun and fired.

>> Timmins said the man fatally shot Winters once before the gun jammed,
>> then pulled out a knife and wounded himself.

>> Churchgoers tried to subdue the attacker, and two of them were
>> slightly hurt.

>> Timmins said officials don't know whether Winters and the suspect
>> knew each other.

>> Ross said that over the last 21 years, Winters built the congregation
>> up from about 30 to 1,500 members. "This is just Satan. Who else
>> would do it? Someone who wanted to stop his message," he said.

>> Winters was married and had two daughters, Ross said. Winters had led
>> First Baptist for nearly 22 years and was the former president of the
>> Illinois Baptist State Association and an adjunct professor for
>> Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, according to the church's
>> website.

>> Ross described the church as occupying a suburban location about 18
>> miles outside St. Louis in an area largely untroubled by crime or
>> violence. "He built this church in a cornfield," he said of Winters,
>> "and now houses are filling in around us."

>> Winters, he said, "was on fire for the Lord. He only worried about
>> people who were lost."

>> He said he and other church members were praying for the gunman.
>> "He's still alive, so there's still a chance for him to turn his life
>> around and find the Lord."

> Are you trying to pass off a genuine news item as a joke?

> Are you trying to parody anti-Semitism?

> The gunman isn't even named, and the odds against the gunman being
> Jewish are astronomical.