The small-town Texas pastor whose teen daughter was among 26 victims slain in a mass shooting wants to tear down the church where the slaughter occurred.
The bullet-riddled First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs will be replaced by a memorial garden under the proposal by Rev. Frank Pomeroy, church officials said Thursday.
Pomeroy, in a meeting with high-level members of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the cozy white church was now “a very painful setting” and called for its demolition.
Charlene Uhl, whose 16-year-old daughter Hayley Krueger died in the massacre, agreed with the proposal. “Nobody should go back to that church again,” she said.
“We should still have the church, but elsewhere. This particular one should be gone. I think they need a new one.”
The building had deep significance to the community — and Hayley (top photo)— but now it is irreparably tainted.
“This church, it was part of everybody… She loved it, above anywhere else. It should not open again,” Uhl (bottom photo) said.
As churchgoers began to ponder a permanent memorial where the building stands, Uhl grieved before a row of wooden crosses honoring victims. One of the crosses featured a photo of Hayley, wearing a black-and-white bow.
“This is the most horrible thing ever. No parent should have to bury their child, especially this way,” Uhl said.
Roger Oldham, a Southern Baptist Convention spokesman, said no demolitions plans had been finalized.
“The church is the people, not a building,” Oldham said.
Law enforcement surrounds the scene of the mass shooting at a Texas church on Nov. 5.
(Nick Wagner/AP)
“We will support the pastor’s decision.”
Pomeroy’s 14-year-old daughter, Anabelle, was among the innocent, unarmed worshipers killed in the attack. The pastor and his wife were out of town. The gunman fired more than 400 bullets.
Under the plan, a new church will be constructed on property near the site of the old one. First Baptist had a congregation of roughly 100, with a quarter of them killed in the Sunday morning massacre.
Edgar Sandoval reported from Sutherland Springs, Tex.
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Whether Mr. Skipper’s prediction proves true remains to be seen. But the report unquestionably introduced new waves of uncertainty and turmoil into a race for the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, the attorney general.
The women cited in The Washington Post article said that Mr. Moore had pursued them in the 1970s and 1980s when he was a lawyer in his early 30s.
Mr. Moore was defiant, denying the charges and attacking the news media.
“These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and The Washington Post on this campaign,” he said in a statement. He later attributed the news to “The Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lap dogs.”
The Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I’ve EVER faced! We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message. (1/4) #ALSen
Brett Doster, an adviser to Mr. Moore, said the candidate would “absolutely not” drop out of the race, calling the charges “a fabricated November surprise.”
Others in Alabama shrugged at the allegations. “There’s nothing to see here,” said Jim Zeigler, the state auditor and a longtime supporter of Mr. Moore. “Single man, early 30s, never been married, dating teenage girls. Never been married and he liked younger girls. According to The Washington Post account he never had sexual intercourse with any of them.”
But Mr. Moore’s candidacy appears to be in grave danger. Senate Republicans moved en masse to distance themselves from their nominee almost as soon as the news article was posted.
A statement from Vice President Mike Pence said: “The Vice President found the allegations in the story disturbing and believes, if true, this would disqualify anyone from serving in office.”
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That statement was repeated by numerous Republicans, including the president who was traveling in Asia.
“Like most Americans the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person’s life,” Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in statement from Danang, Vietnam, where the president is attending an economic summit meeting. “However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.”
“If these allegations are true, his candidacy is not sustainable,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican. Mr. Cornyn said he wanted to know more before withdrawing his endorsement of Mr. Moore.
The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of.
The party, already reeling from the election losses they suffered on Tuesday, is defending a two-seat majority in the Senate and faces a handful of difficult elections next year.
Mr. Moore’s candidacy had already worried party leaders who had embraced Mr. Moore despite his long record of incendiary comments about gays, Muslims and African-Americans.
Alabama election law indicates, with little ambiguity, that the deadline has passed for candidates to be replaced on the ballot. The state election code says a candidate who wishes to withdraw from a race must do so 76 days before Election Day. The Alabama vote is in little more than a month.
“It’s too late to substitute a candidate,” said John Merrill, the Alabama secretary of state, a Republican. “Judge Moore will be the candidate on the ballot with this election cycle remaining on the schedule it’s currently on.”
Republican lawyers and strategists in Washington were engaged in a furious search on Thursday for creative ways around that restriction, seeking a loophole that would allow the party’s leadership in the state to anoint a new candidate. The prospect of a write-in candidacy, for a third candidate, was also under consideration, according to party aides.
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Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who ran her own successful write-in campaign in 2010, said: “If in fact what I just read is true, he needs to get out of this race immediately. I think it’s pretty clear cut.”
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She called for Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to fill Mr. Sessions’s seat but lost to Mr. Moore in a bitterly contested Republican runoff in September, to run as a write-in.
One of the women, Leigh Corfman, told The Washington Post that she was 14 when Mr. Moore, 32 at the time, drove her to his home in Gadsden, Ala. He took off her shirt and touched her bra and underwear while also guiding her hand over his pants, Ms. Corfman told The Post.
“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she told the newspaper.
CNN reported that it had spoken with Ms. Corfman’s stepfather, who said the family “stands by” what was reported in The Post.
Republican leaders are in a politically perilous situation, saddled with an embattled nominee unwilling to step aside in one of the country’s most conservative states. The charges reignited hostilities between Mr. McConnell’s political allies, who poured millions of dollars into the campaign to stop Mr. Moore, and President Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who rallied support for the former justice.
“This is what happens when you let reckless, incompetent idiots like Steve Bannon go out and recruit candidates who have absolutely no business running for the U.S. Senate,” said Josh Holmes, a former McConnell aide.
Mr. Bannon did not immediately reply to text messages or phone calls, but Breitbart posted an article with Mr. Moore’s statement shortly before The Post published its report.
Steven Law, the head of a McConnell-aligned “super PAC” that led an onslaught against Mr. Moore in the Republican runoff, did not wait for a guilty verdict before he excoriated Breitbart for “defending ‘consensual’ sex between a 32-year-old and a 16-year-old.”
Private polling by both parties has shown that while Mr. Moore retains a passionate following among conservatives, he is a deeply divisive figure among more moderate Republicans, and some party officials now worry that the charges will convince moderates to stay home or vote for the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, a former United States attorney.
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The Jones campaign said in a statement that “Roy Moore needs to answer these serious charges.”
Cleveland Poole, the chairman of the Republican Party in rural Butler County, said those most likely to defect were not ardent Moore supporters but voters who already have doubts. “They are going to be put off by it and might well stay home,” he said.
In a statement, Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, called the allegations “deeply disturbing,” and said she would withhold judgment until “we know the facts.” Senator Richard Shelby, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, told reporters in Washington that if the charges were accurate “he wouldn’t belong in the Senate.”
Mr. Doster, the adviser to Mr. Moore, said the candidate’s campaign chairman, Bill Armistead, had talked to members of Alabama’s congressional delegation after the report broke. “Everybody has been supportive,” Mr. Doster said.
But a Republican familiar with the conversation said the House members on the call had told Mr. Armistead it was imperative that they aggressively respond to the article or risk losing support from the party’s elected officials.
Randy Brinson, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, said he expected voters would mostly give Mr. Moore the benefit of the doubt.
“Until I see something different, I would support Roy Moore because of what he says he’s going to do and who he is as a person,” Mr. Brinson said.
Mr. Zeigler said the account given by Ms. Corfman was “the only part that is concerning.” As Mr. Zeigler described it: “He went a little too far and he stopped.”
Had the girl been 16 at the time and not 14, he added, “it would have been perfectly acceptable.”
For Democrats, the prospect of a wounded Mr. Moore was a gift.
“This is revolting and the Republican Party and everybody’s who endorsed Roy Moore needs to disavow his candidacy right now and ask him to withdraw,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who leads the Senate Democratic campaign arm.
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Until recently, few Democratic officials believed that Mr. Jones could topple Mr. Moore in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992, and Democrats have debated fiercely whether to commit resources to the race. Now many think they have a chance to shrink the Republican majority to a single seat and potentially snatch the majority next year.
Correction: November 9, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated Roy S. Moore’s election track record. He has both won and lost statewide races.
