VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala. ( Associated Press) — The 70-year-old man who shot and killed three people at an Alabama church sat alone and was drinking. She refused when they asked her to join the others who were going to share dinner and then shots broke the peace of the night, one survivor recalled.
“I felt like he was disconnected,” said 73-year-old Susan Salin. Stephens Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, sat at the same table with three people killed in Thursday night’s attack.
The shooter had previously attended services and some church gatherings for the baby boomer generation and older, but didn’t interact much with others, she said.
That night the man was sitting alone on a table. Although wine was available for dinner, he drank like a small bottle of whiskey and declined the invitation to integrate with the others.
According to Salin, “I personally invited it twice to come and sit at my desk because I wanted to include it, but it didn’t come.” He said that a woman, whose husband was later killed when she was shot, “seen that he had not taken a plate, got up and offered to serve it.”
The man didn’t even say that.
70 -year -old Robert Findley Smith has been accused of death in a deadly shooting of three people.
Walter Bartlet Renny, 84, Sara Yezar, 75, Pelham, and another woman were killed in an attack. The police did not facilitate the name of the third victim, but friends recognized her as Jane.
The meeting was a pleasure. Friends, who did not gather during the pandemic, talked about their food, their favorite cars and other petty topics.
Salin said she doesn’t remember hearing any heated arguments or conversations before she opened fire.
“I heard a loud metal sound, and thought a metal chair had fallen. There was another sound and another, by then I realized it was shot,” he said.
“People threw themselves on the floor. I did the same thing. When I fell on the ground, I realized that two of my friends sitting on the table with me were fired.
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