A 70-year-old Alabama dinner guest fatally shot three people inside a church hall before an elderly veteran disarmed him, police said.
Robert Findlay Smith, 70, is a resident of Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
On June 16, 2022, Smith walked into a “Boomers Potluck” dinner held at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, according to accounts.
Smith sat alone throughout the gathering that evening. But he turned down several invitations to join other tables, Musgrove said.
Smith then pulled out a handgun and began firing into the church gathering, Musgrove said.
The gunfire came “bang, bang, bang, one second apart,” 79-year-old Air Force veteran and retired investigator Jim Musgrove later said.
Musgrove immediately moved toward the gunfire. By the time he reached him, Smith had already fired three shots and was aiming a fourth, Musgrove said.
Musgrove grabbed a banquet chair, pointed its legs at Smith like a shield, and ran straight at him, according to the veteran.
He wrestled the gun out of Smith’s hand and forced the shooter face-down onto the floor, Musgrove said.
Musgrove beat Smith with the gunman’s own weapon more than once. He kept striking him until Smith finally stopped fighting back, Musgrove said.
Musgrove then pinned Smith to the floor and held him there until officers arrived, police said.
What Musgrove saw next stayed with him, according to the retired investigator.
“I looked down and I saw my wife. I saw Mr. Rainey, who was obviously dead. His wife was lying on top of him, and my wife Lynn was lying with her,” he said.
Walter Rainey, 84, Sarah Yeager, 75, and Jane Pounds, 84, were killed in the shooting, police said.
Musgrove and his wife considered the three slain parishioners close friends, describing them as being “like family.”
Investigators probed the church shooting in the weeks that followed. But no motive was ever found, according to officials.
“There is no reason at all that we can understand why the man did what he did,” Musgrove said.
Smith was charged with capital murder and indicted a month later, court records show.
On May 2, 2023, Smith pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life without parole, according to court records.
That life sentence without parole was the specific outcome the victims’ families said they wanted.
The Vestavia Hills Police Department presented Musgrove with a life-saving award for stopping the gunman. He was also given the Carnegie Medal, one of only 15 awarded nationally that year for civilian heroism.
Asked if he considers himself a hero, Musgrove said not in the purest sense. “You react the way you react… I was laser focused on what I had to do and I did it,” he said.
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