Preacher Slay Suspect Is Mentally Ill

In August Newspaper Interview, Family Says Lyme Disease From Tick Bite Attacked Man's Brain

(CBS/AP)  The man suspected of fatally shooting an Illinois pastor during Sunday services suffered from mental illness stemming from a tick bite, the suspect's family told a newspaper in an interview last August.

The suspect, whom a source told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is 27-year-old Terry Joe Sedlacek, allegedly walked into the First Baptist Church, walked toward Rev. Fred Winters and killed him with a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, police said. Churchgoers then wrestled him to the ground as he brandished a knife, said Illinois State Police Director Larry Trent.

Sedlacek was the subject of a story in the Post-Dispatch about how Lyme disease had attacked his brain.

Stephanee Smith of the Madison County state's attorney's office said Sedlacek has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery, but would not comment on a possible motive.

Winters later died of his injuries.

A tick bite dating back at least 10 years ago triggered a series of erratic behaviors and mental difficulties for Sedlacek, his mother, Ruth Abernathy, told the newspaper in August, adding that doctors struggled to pinpoint the cause.

"They didn't know, I didn't know," Abernathy said. "I just want my son back." She described her son in the article as an avid hunter and believed that's how he contracted the disease.

After spending time in a medically induced coma and receiving antibiotics, Sedlacek began to recover, the newspaper reported, however, his improved health did not last long.

Upon leaving the hospital, Sedlacek regressed and has spent the last several years having difficulty speaking. He takes several drugs, including an anti-seizure medicine, his mother told the newspaper.

"He takes enough medicine at night to knock a cow out, but he only sleeps two or three hours a night," Abernathy told the newspaper.

None of the about 150 worshippers attending the early morning service seemed to recognize the gunman, and investigators did not know details of Winters' conversation with him, police said, but they planned to review an audio recording of the service.

Police said investigators found no immediate evidence of a criminal background for the suspect. He said police were investigating whether a red Jeep parked outside the church belonged to the man.

The Jeep, which remained at the church Sunday night under State Police watch, was registered to the address of a 27-year-old man in an upscale neighborhood in Troy. No one answered the door at the residence Sunday.

Winters deflected the first of the gunman's four rounds with a Bible, sending a confetti-like spray of paper into the air in a horrifying scene worshippers initially thought was a skit, police said.

"We just sat there waiting for what comes next not realizing that he had wounded the pastor," said Linda Cunningham, whose husband is a minister of adult education at the 1,200-member church.

Winters had stood on an elevated platform to deliver his sermon about finding happiness in the workplace - titled "Come On, Get Happy" - and managed to run halfway down the sanctuary's side aisle before collapsing after the attack, Cunningham said.

Two worshippers tackled the gunman as he pulled the knife, and all three were stabbed - the gunman suffered "a pretty serious wound to the neck" while one worshipper had lower back wounds, Trent said.

Churchgoers knocked the gunman between sets of pews, then held him down until police arrived, said member Don Bohley, who was just outside the sanctuary when the shooting began.

"People came running out and told us to call 911," said Bohley, 72.

The gunman and 39-year-old worshipper Terry Bullard underwent surgery at St. Louis University Hospital and were in serious condition Sunday evening, according to hospital spokeswoman Laura Keller. The other victim, Keith Melton, was treated and released from Gateway Regional Medical Center.

"I would call it heroic," Trent said. "While many understandably were stuck to their seats, they took to action."

[CPMom]

LYMES DISEASE, PLEASE RESEARCH IT! I'm sending my prayers to all that are induring this horrific experience and may God give you his embrace to deal and overcome and find peace. I was diagnoised with Lymes Disease 5 years ago, I was 44 and have been very ill since then. Within the first 1 year of the Lymes Disease I was also diagonised with Fibramylgia, Chronic Fatigue, IBS, Rhumoride Authoritis and 5 herniated disc. in my neck and lower lumbar. Please read about this diesease, it feels like you have the flu; body aches, fever, rash, etc. and the Dr.'s treat this as having the flu and it is actually a Viral Infection from a tick bite infectin (White Tail Deer Tick) if not treated and diagonised correctly (which is almost impossible to diagonis the disease if the correct blood test is not ran (western block III and sent to a special Blood Lab for accurate reading) it attacks your immune system, nerve system, brain interpatations, eye site, digestative system.....pretty much your whole body and how it use to function. I have worked sence I was 12 years old, have accomplised many, many wonderful goals in my life (will continue on), married for 33 yrs with children and grandchildren, so of course I will continue on, but this diesease is lethal; it hurts, the pain is overwhelming at times, consumes your mind at times because of the pain and mental quest of thoughts that you seek. Please read about LYMES, it is not as rare of a disease as you think and it is very hard to get diagonised with it, treatment plan for it and a treatment plan found for you is not welcomed by insurance companies (hard to get diagonised, hard to get insurance to pay for diagnoise, after a year of treatment insurance starts dening treatment program)! Thanks for reading and again my thoughts and prayers to ya'll.

[barbaram99]

have given up my right to own a fire arm , I feel it is one right I don't need as a blind person.. It is a dack that the metally ill can't own a fire arm and yet they get their paws on one. This makes no sense. He walked in a church and shot the mimister . The constution grants/gives us the right to bear arms. That right is so abused today. That right does not tell a person to kill in cold blood ,does not tell a person to kill just cos he/she wants to see a person die in front the eyes that see it. I think it is time to fix guns so they won't work in the wrong paws. Sures there is laws that should stop this kind of killing. They are not working. He went to church to kill and shock others. Same people kill as well.

[Newster1]

...sending a confetti-like spray of paper into the air in a horrifying scene worshippers initially thought was a skit, police said."

Oh gezzus, in this day and age can people REALLY be that freaking stupid?? can people really believe the blasts you hear in a bank lobby or office building are firecrackers or a "prank"??

[skeezix06]

I feel sorry for both families.

Probably a waste of time but I'm going to point out that we call mentally ill people because they are so far removed from reality that they frequently don't understand what they did.

[yamuttya]

US gun laws are insane.

[differnet]

guydigadirt, I don't know what your experience has been with hand-to-hand combat, but mine has shown me that it is a heck of a lot easier to pull a trigger than to plunge a bayonet into a person. Knifing someone is much more personal and your victim is much more likely to a) fight back effectively and b) survive the assault. As always, you assume that the person who is for gun control is anti-gun. In fact, I enjoy shooting. However, I am sick and tired of the death toll caused by the illegal sale of guns AND by the poor control of guns. If you have a weapon it is your job as a responsible gun owner to secure it and ensure that only qualified people gain access to it.

[guysdigdirt]

Approximately 95% of individuals who commit homicidal acts do not have a severe mental disorder." Criminologists say that "a common thread in all these mass killings is access to firearms"!~
Posted by cbswontwin

Once again you offer no substantiation to your ludicrous opinions.

In other words;
I think you are full of $hit. You have no education on the matter and it is obvious.

[guysdigdirt]

Yet 84 were used to kill someone today, 200 more were used to injure, around 4,567 of those guns were used to commit crimes, and none of the 200 million guns saved anyone today.

Then he said "What do these idiots think that making guns illegal will stop crime"

Nope but it will decrease it.

Posted by cbswontwin

Can you give any shred of evidence to back up what you say?

To the contrary, thousands if not millions of lives have been saved by law abiding citizens who have been armed with a gun.

Countries that have outlawed guns have seen dramatic increases in crime.
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:ftUwZaChwacJ:abriefhistory.org/%3Fp%3D483+crime+in+brittan+post+gun+ban&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us

If you were a criminal would you rather have your prey unarmed, or able to fight back? If you were a thief, would you break into the house that you knew did not have a gun, or one that might have a gun?

Give some substantial evidence to back up your claims, or state it for what it is... your opinion.

[guysdigdirt]

I am very concerned though with someone who has a history of mental illness once again got his hands on a gun. Can't we all at least agree that people with such mental disorders should not have access to guns?
Posted by differnet

That is more than agreed, it is a law. Do you think he would have not found another weapon if he could not get a gun? There are many other weapons he could use and he did have a knife with him, he could have done it with a knfe also.

Guns kill people like spoons make people fat.

[differnet]

I'll pray for Terry Joe Sedlacek tonight. Reverand Winter and his family is also in my prayers. I am very concerned though with someone who has a history of mental illness once again got his hands on a gun. This reminds me too much of the young man at Virgina Tech. Can't we all at least agree that people with such mental disorders should not have access to guns?

[sunspro]

Let's see...what other avid hunters have recently switched from killing innocent animals to killing humans? There was the 11 year old who killed his father's pregnant girlfriend. And there will be more. It's not that long a leap for a child or the mentally ill to go from murdering animals to murdering humans.

[winchester70]

In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV replaced the designation of MPD with DID: dissociative identity disorder. The label may have changed, but the list of symptoms remained essentially the same. The bloviating of the vociferous anti-gun zealot suffering from this disorder "remains essentially the same" as well.

[KellyinNebraska]

Julie Chen's questioning this morning of 2 parishioners was just ridiculous and infuriating. She kept cutting off the woman who was giving her first-person account that she had asked for, then her first question to the second witness was about his reaction to the apparent assailant's Lyme Disease. WHAT!? These people have been traumatized by watching their pastor get gunned down right in front of them and she's asking ridiculous questions. ! How can it make any difference to them right then whether the apparent assailant had Lyme Disease? And what did she expect that their response would be? Are they Lyme Disease specialists? Why is the Early Show pushing this angle when few other national media are? What does that lend to the discussion of this story right now? For crying out loud Julie get a clue. And treat your news guests with some respect and compassion. When you ask them what they saw, give them a chance to talk. For me, I promptly turned the channel on your stupid interview and probably won't watch you again.

[rrozsa]

Even if he is found to be mentally incompetent and is 'put away', once he is treated with medication and shown to be 'normal' they have to let him loose, thanks to Jimmy Carter. A huge percentage of the homeless are those who were previously committed, but were successfully treated with medication and deemed fit to be released, even though without medication they would certainly relapse. With no one to administer their medication, they go off meds and are soon back where they started -- mentally incompetent and on the streets. Thanks, Jimmy Carter.

[brianbwb-2009]

In an article CBS did not allow comments for, it said that the gunman was speaking to the preacher as he walked towards the pulpit, but it doesn't say anything about what the gunman actually said, apparently there were witnesses to the gunman speaking, but none gave info as to what he was saying. Perhaps he had a grievance against the preacher, but the article gives no details about the gunman's words. I would be interested to know the topic of conversation, and think that the police should also want to know.

Could it be that, like most church sermons, no one was paying attention?

[dct111]

Thanks for the spelling correction... ;)

Agreed, it is for life and needs to be managed accordingly.

[harbinger19]

Finally in October of 2003, they found the Lyme's disease tider and I was finally diagnosed. But there was still one problem, I didn't get the full amount of antibiotics I was supposed to have received. I was only given a 10 day supply. But, the antibiotics did work for the time and seemed to have worked for a couple of months. Then I had relapses of the disease and had to take more antibiotics. The doctors still never gave me more than two weeks of medicine and I had continuous relapses over the next couple years. Finally, in 2005, a doctor gave me a full 30 day supply of antibiotics. That supply worked great for a long time. I did, ironically, have a relapse 1 month ago and I had to take some old antibiotics from years past.
These doctors I have been to are all military docs and I seem to fight tooth and nail just to get antibiotics. I am so worried now that after all of these years, what the effects down the road may be due to the neglect I have received from these military doctors.

Posted by dct111 at 10:24 AM : Mar 9, 2009

FYI: When a person is exposed to any disease, antibodies show up in their blood that "remembers the illness and attack it the next time it shows up.

Counting the amount of reaction to a disease by measuring antibodies in the blood is called a TITER.

There are no antibiotics to cure Lyme disease which is a tick vector disease. Drugs can be used to manage symptoms--but it is for life--there is NO CURE for Lyme disease. Antibiotics can cure bacterial infections--they are useless against viruses, parisites or mycopathogens.

[harbinger19]

If Illinois had concealed carry laws this never would have happened.
Posted by Javelin0351 at 10:20 AM : Mar 9, 2009


Why do you say that? Do concealed carry laws automatically stop all other guns in the vicinity from firing? if there were concealed gun carry laws--the preacher might still be dead, the gunman might also be dead and those who got in a tussle with the crazy guy might all be dead too. Bullets don't have names on them and carrying a concealed weapon does NOT mean you will be able to get to it, o r draw it in time to prevent a crime--more like you will be able to get to it and draw it in reaction to a crime.

But reaction means the act of killing already occurred--maybe the concealed law would prevent or increase the killing.

[harbinger19]

For every life saved with guns 120 are killed. Guns are designed to kill people not to save them.
Posted by cbswontwin at 8:57 AM : Mar 9, 2009


So gun owners are "winning"?

A lot of things are designed to kill people--like cyanide, nuclear weapons, blow guns, air in a hypodermic, insulin in a nondiabetic, pure nicotine, spears and knives, clubs, a garrote, chemotherapy drugs...the list goes on and on...but guns--like every thing else on the list has other uses too--like killing other stuff.

[harbinger19]

ou religious nutjobs...
Then how about, "This was God's will?"
By your standard you should try praying next time you get sick rather than going to a doctor or hospital.
Posted by gce651 at 8:04 AM : Mar 9, 2009


People do--all the time--more importantly--some get healed. Now, how about that? LOL