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Ore. Gunman's '666' Manifesto: 'Serve Darkness'

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The grieving and the stunned made their way to church in Roseburg, Oregon, on Sunday, looking for a focus to ease their pain and help make sense of a mass shooting that no one saw coming.

Randy Scroggins, senior pastor at New Beginnings Church of God, said his daughter survived because 20-year-old Trevon Anspach fell on her after he was shot.

"I believe that in those last moments if he had any consciousness whatsoever, I believe he said, 'I am going to roll onto Lacey,'" Scroggins said.

Covered by Anspach's bloody body, 18-year-old Lacey Scroggins played dead and fooled the shooter.

"We believe that his (Anspach's) blood saved our daughter," Pastor Scroggins said.

People magazine has published an unconfirmed report from a source familiar with the investigation, saying that the gunman left a manifesto that revealed his intent. The shooter reportedly wrote "666" on it and said that he wanted to "serve darkness."

"This guy did this strictly for satanic purposes. He did it to become a god in hell. He wants to be evil. That is his goal--to serve Satan," the source told People.

In his Sunday sermon, Pastor Scroggins told his congregation that he's not thinking about the gunman.

"If you focus on the shooter, if you focus on him now that he is dead, you will be sucked into believing that evil is gone. But I'm here to tell you that he is dead and evil is still alive," he told the church.

"So I don't focus on him," he continued. "I realize that there is something far worse than him. It is the evil that controlled him. I have good news. Evil was at the cross. Evil took the life of Christ, but three days later Christ came out of the grave."

Another hero in the shooting, Army veteran Chris Mintz, posted a Facebook video message this weekend to let supporters know that he's recovering well. The gunman shot Mintz seven times as he attempted to save other students by blocking a doorway.

"I'm overwhelmed by the support that I've gotten from everybody," Mintz says in the video. "I just want to wish all the other families a safe and speedy recovery."

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About The Author

Heather
Sells

Heather Sells covers wide-ranging stories for CBN News that include religious liberty, ministry trends, immigration, and education. She’s known for telling personal stories that capture the issues of the day, from the border sheriff who rescues migrants in the desert to the parents struggling with a child that identifies as transgender. In the last year, she has reported on immigration at the Texas border, from Washington, D.C., in advance of the Dobbs abortion case, at crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, and on sexual abuse reform at the annual Southern Baptist meeting in Anaheim