People fled church shooting, ended up at local bar

By John Ford?Daily News Managing Editor

The Rev. Tom Thorne had just talked with four members of a Micronesian congregation more than an hour before a deadly shooting occurred at the church that left three people dead and several injured.??

Thorne, pastor of First Congregational Church, said he left his church about 12:30 p.m., about half an hour before the Pacific Islander congregation met for a two-hour service.?

"I went out to dinner with some of my family, and had just gotten back home and was watching TV when I got the call about the activity at the church," he said.??

The group gathered at First Congregational Church from 1 to 3 p.m. Sundays for worship in their native language, according to Thorne.

Thorne said the group is led by Kernal Rehobson, senior pastor of the Micronesian worship group, but also has several associate pastors.

He could not comment on those killed or wounded, but told a passer-by he knew them all.?

Chris Gray, an emergency medical technician with Freeman Ambulance, and another EMT, Katy Edsell, treated two of the injured in the basement of Sam's Cellar, a restaurant and bar located on the corner of Wood and Spring streets about a block away from the incident.

He said a male between 40 and 45 years of age suffered a gunshot wound to the head, and a 78-year-old woman had a gunshot wound to the left arm.??

About 17 witnesses and others were brought to Sam's Cellar until deputies with the Newton County Sheriff's Department could question them.??

Suzi Howsmon, owner of Sam's Cellar, was inside the bar and grill going over her books when the shooting occurred.

"I was doing the books when my son Blake pulled in and said, 'Mom, are you OK?' and I said, 'Yeah, what are you talking about?'" she said. "They started bringing witnesses in, and a lot of the women didn't have shoes on. They walked from the church to our back door - about 150 feet - across that hot parking lot. They had blisters, bloody feet. One of the elderly women actually collapsed ... One lady had a bullet wound through her forearm, and another gentleman -- I don't know if it was a graze or not --- but he had a bullet wound in the back of his head."??

Gray and Edsell arrived shortly afterward with EMT kits and began treating the wounded.

The two with bullet wounds were taken to area hospitals, Gray said, while the others were loaded into a Special Response Team vehicle belonging to the Newton County Sheriff's Department.??

"Some of them were like, 17 or 20 years old, and were really emotional," Howsmon said. "They were just hysterical from just witnessing that. What we did was open up to get them out of the heat more than anything."?

Thorne said the shooting happened on the church's 141st anniversary.