57-year-old Jeremiah Fogle is being charged with First Degree Murder and three counts of Attempted Murder.
Church where Pastor William Boss and Assoc. Pastor Carl Stewart were shot
Lakeland, Florida - The Polk County Sheriff's Office says a man shot and killed his wife inside their house on Sunday morning before firing his gun again a block away inside the church where they were married.
The suspect, 57-year-old Jeremiah Fogle, is being charged with First Degree Murder and three counts of Attempted Murder. The woman he's accused of killing has been identified as Theresa Fogle.
Photo Gallery: Lakeland Church Shooting
On Sunday morning, Theresa's sister, Laura Gardin, cried into her husband's shoulder and begged to see her oldest sibling one more time.
"You would never know that anything was wrong," Gardin says. "Every time you'd see her she had a smile on her face. Whenever you'd see her, she was either going to church, coming from church. Any time you say, 'I need something,' she was there. Never did you see her when she had a bad day."
The Polk County Sheriff's Office says it received a 911 call around 10 a.m. Sunday from a caller who said a gunman had just run through the front door of the Greater Faith Christian Church at 2035 West Parker Street in Lakeland and shot Pastor William Boss and the Associate Pastor Carl Stewart.
Investigators say Fogle entered through the front door of the sanctuary and walked down the center aisle to the front of the church, where parishioners were conducting a prayer service ahead of the regular morning service.
Fogle was wearing dress pants and a dress shirt at the time. Detectives say he walked over to Pastor Boss, who was to the right of the church, kneeling in prayer. They say Fogle bent down as if to identify Boss, then shot him once in the back of the head.
"Pastor Boss was a good person. If you or your child needed anything, all you had to do was come talk to him. He was there for people," says neighbor Teronica Lewis.
Detectives say Fogle then turned to Associate Pastor Stewart, who was at the left side of the church. They say Fogle shot Stewart three times. They say Stewart was shot once in the head behind the left ear, once in the left shoulder, and once in the middle of his back.
Two parishioners, Derrick Foster and Corey Reed, tackled Fogle. They held him down and took away his gun, a 32. caliber revolver, until law enforcement could arrive to arrest him.
"We don't know what he would have done if not for the heroic actions of the people in the church to fight him to the ground and disarm him," Sheriff Grady Judd says. "That is a hero."
Investigators say there was one round left in Fogle's gun and he had six more rounds in his pocket. While Fogle suffered a cut on his head, no one at the church was hurt.
Meanwhile, Pastor Boss and Associate Pastor Carl
Stewart were rushed to Lakeland Regional Medical Center. As of Sunday evening, both were listed in critical condition.
"If there's one place that you should be able to go on Sunday and worship safely and securely, it should be your church or your synagogue," Judd says. "And, unfortunately, that wasn't the case here this morning."
Fogle and his wife were once members of the church where the shooting happened. They were married there back in 2002. But neither of them had attended services there in several years, and Gardin says they had recently started their own ministry. They sometimes held services at their house.
"Theresa would do anything for anybody. She did not deserve this," Gardin says.
Tammie Fields, 10 News