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Culture of Death: GUNS, GUNS, GUNS. Priests with guns, homeless with guns…
(AZ Central Phoenix) – Police investigators had the name of the man suspected of killing a Catholic priest by Saturday afternoon, when another man went to police headquarters and reported that someone named Gary Moran was bragging about beating a priest and robbing him, according to court records.
Police would hear once again, on Sunday, from someone who claimed they had information linking Moran to the crime, this time from a woman who said Moran gave her a black bag that contained a camera belonging to one of two priests who were attacked, according to court records.
Moran, 54, was arrested and booked into jail shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday on suspicion of murdering Father Kenneth Walker, 28, and beating Father Joseph Terra, according to court records.
Terra told investigators that he heard a noise on Wednesday night and opened the kitchen door when he was attacked by a man holding an angle iron. Terra was bleeding and wanted to get to a gun that was kept in a nightstand next to his bed, according to the records.
Terra told police that he and Moran struggled over the weapon, but he was unable to shoot the gun because he had injured his finger in the scuffle with Moran.
“Father Terra stated the male made him get on his hands and knees and told him to give him money,” according to court records. “Father Terra stated he blacked out and does not remember calling 911. The next thing he remembered was giving Father Walker absolution.”
Phoenix police investigators interviewed Moran Sunday night and at first Moran told detectives he did not remember what happened on Wednesday evening at the rectory but later said there was a struggle in the hallway with one of the priests over a gun, according to court records.
“The other priest then came after (Moran) and he then shot that priest,” according to court records.
Moran declined to speak with detectives after that statement, according to court documents.
News of the arrest of Moran came hours before Valley residents honored Walker with a requiem Mass.
Moran was booked into jail shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday and had an initial appearance at 8 a.m. Monday before a judge who ordered a $1 million cash-only bond, according to court records.
Court documents indicate that Moran is unemployed and was living as a transient.
Moran was released in April after serving more than 85 percent of his sentence for burglary and aggravated assault, according to the Department of Corrections. Moran met with his parole officer for two months after his release but failed to show up for a meeting scheduled on June 9, according to a corrections spokesman.
Walker was murdered late Wednesday night in the rectory of a Catholic parish west of downtown Phoenix.
Phoenix police collected physical evidence from the Catholic church Walker was killed and another critically injured Wednesday night, but investigators spent the weekend developing more information about the crimes.
Walker was shot and killed and Terra, 56, was wounded at a Catholic church Wednesday night near the state Capitol.
Police were responding to a burglary call shortly after 9 p.m. near 16th Avenue and Monroe Street at the Mater Misericordiae (Mother of Mercy) Mission, said Sgt. Steve Martos, a Phoenix police spokesman.
Terra, the pastor, was identified as the priest who survived but remained in stable condition.
Police said Terra was “physically harmed” but not stabbed or shot.
Terra called 911, police said.
A car that police were seeking in connection with the attack was found at 17th Avenue and Taylor Street, about four blocks north of the church, Martos said. The car was unoccupied when it was found.
Moran was arrested in 2005 after he entered a Phoenix home, found a steak knife and went into the homeowner’s bedroom, according to court documents. The homeowner awoke to find Moran rummaging around his room, according to court records. When the resident sat up, Moran stabbed him in the stomach, according to court records, and he continued to stab the man until the victim was able to pull a pillow over his abdomen, according to court documents. The victim’s brother and neighbors jumped on Moran and detained him until police arrived, according to court records.
Moran told investigators at the time that he didn’t fully recall breaking into the home and assaulting the man, according to court records, but he also said he had recently used methamphetamine.
Court records indicate that before his sentencing in the 2005 assault case, Moran had three misdemeanor and four felony convictions, including a misconduct involving weapons charge in 2000.
Moran was sentenced to 10 years in prison in May 2006 and received credit for more than a year he had served in jail before his sentencing, according to court records. Moran was released from custody on April 25, according to Department of Corrections records.
A Department of Corrections spokesman could not provide information Monday morning about whether Moran was subject to any supervision after his release in April.
Walker was an ordained priest in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. He graduated from Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy, a Catholic school in Ontario, Canada, where he studied from 2003 to 2005 before moving to Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Neb. Walker was ordained in 2012 in Nebraska.
Terra comes from a family of nine children that grew up in the farming country around Lodi, Calif.
Before joining the priesthood, he worked in the honey business, hauling bees, said Father Jose Salgado, a priest who has known Terra for 23 years.
Salgado said Terra is built like a boxer and has a tough demeanor. “I wouldn’t want to take him on,” said Salgado, who celebrates the Latin Mass at St. Cecilia Church in Clarkdale.
Terra was instrumental in finding the vacant church building and making it the home of the Mother of Mercy Mission, said John Shannon, who now serves at a parish outside Topeka, Kan.
The mission was established by Bishop Thomas Olmsted in 2005 to provide Latin Mass to the faithful in Arizona.
The mission previously held services at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church. Its current location, west of downtown Phoenix, was dedicated in December 2010
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