SALON

Thursday, Jan 24, 2013 8:45 AM UTC

NM teen spends time at church after family slain

By

Topics: From the Wires,

NM teen spends time at church after family slainA crowd begins to gather in Albuquerque, N.M., on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013, for a prayer vigil in honor of a couple and their three young children who were shot to death in their home last weekend. Authorities have charged the couple's 15-year-old son, Nehemiah Griego, with murder and child abuse resulting in death. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)(Credit: AP)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico teen accused of killing his family and plotting to randomly gun down Wal-Mart shoppers spent much of the day after the early morning slayings at his church, wandering the campus as dozens of Sunday school teachers were being trained on how to deal with a shooter, a security official said.

But it wasn’t until hours later, former police officer and Calvary Albuquerque security chief Vince Harrison said, that he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

Harrison, who led the safety training Saturday morning, said he was called back to the church that evening after 15-year-old Nehemiah Griego told a pastor he found his family dead in their home.

“When I met Nehemiah, I knew something wasn’t right,” Harrison said Wednesday. “I could feel it, I could see it in his eyes and I could see it in his behavior and his demeanor so the red flags went up and that’s when I called the sheriff’s department.”

Harrison, who had known the Griego family for about 10 years, said he drove the teen back to the family’s rural southwest Albuquerque home to meet authorities, interviewing him along the way.

“He went into detail of where they were, where the guns were and he was very matter-of-fact, really cold so I knew something wasn’t right,” Harrison said.

After finding the bodies, sheriff’s officials say, they took the teen to headquarters. During questioning, they say he confessed to shooting his mother and three younger siblings in their beds shortly after 1 a.m., then waiting in a bathroom with a military-style semi-automatic rifle to ambush his father upon his return from an overnight shift at a homeless shelter.

They say he also told them he had reloaded the family’s rifles and taken them with him in the family van with plans to randomly shoot more people.

“That sends chills down my spine,” Harrison said. “But obviously God had a different plan.”

Harrison said several people spotted Griego at the church throughout the day and told him hello, thinking nothing of it until his arrest. He said officials then reviewed security video and found the teen had spent much of the day there.

The video has been turned over to investigators, who have been working to piece together what led to the violence and what happened in the hours that followed.

Harrison said he doesn’t know why Griego decided to come to the church, but that it was like a second home for the boy, who was homeschooled.

“It was a familiar place to him,” he said. “I think if he did have in his mindset to do something foolish and start shooting people there also, I think his demeanor was tamed a little bit because he saw people there he knew.”

Sheriff Dan Houston said Tuesday there was no indication Griego intended to harm anyone at the church. The sheriff also said Griego and his girlfriend had spent much of the day together.

A prayer vigil was held at the church Wednesday night for victims Greg Griego, 51, his wife, Sarah Griego, 40, and three of their children — a 9-year-old boy, Zephania Griego, and daughters Jael Griego, 5, and Angelina Griego, 2.

Before the start of the vigil, members of the crowd shared hugs and handshakes as photographs of the victims were displayed on large digital screens at the front of the church. An estimated 2,000 people attended and nearly every seat was filled before the start of the hour-long service.

“Our hearts break, Lord,” Pastor Skip Heitzig told the crowd. “We, often in times like these, scratch our heads and wonder why. We are at a loss for words and we are certainly at a loss for explanation.”

Heitzig shared stories about Greg Griego, who once served as pastor at Calvary. He said Greg was always ready to “get his hands dirty” and was dedicated to helping others find God through his work as a pastor and as a volunteer chaplain. He also urged the crowd to remember that forgiveness and restoration — two tenets dear to Greg — will be important as the community moves forward.

Relatives in a statement Tuesday night said they were heartbroken, and remembered the teen as a bright and talented musician who played guitar, drums and bass with the church choir. He also was a champion wrestler who dreamed of following his family’s long tradition of military service, and a boy who accompanied his pastor father on rescue missions to Mexico, they said.

“We have not been able to comprehend what led to this incredibly sad situation. However, we are deeply concerned about the portrayal in some media of Nehemiah as some kind of a monster.”

The statement, emailed by the boy’s uncle, Eric Griego, called on the media and the public not to use 15-year-old Nehemiah Griego “as a pawn for ratings or to score political points.”

“He is a troubled young man who made a terrible decision that will haunt him and his family forever,” the statement said.

___

Associated Press Writer Jeri Clausing in Albuquerque, N.M., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Susan Montoya Bryan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/susanmbryanNM

More By Susan Montoya Bryan.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations