In his right hand, Larry Linam carried the manuscript he wrote about his daughter's death. In his left, he carried the wooden shank he sneaked into the Morris County Courthouse to stab his daughter's killer.
"This book has been a mirror that, when I hold it up in front of me, shows me how angry I really was," Linam said. His book, "The Day the Angels Cried," chronicles his trip through isolation and personal forgiveness after June 22, 1980, when five people died in a shooting during Sunday worship services at First Baptist Church in Daingerfield.
Michael Cavazos/News-Journal Photo |
Larry Linam holds manuscript he wrote and the wooden shank he planned on killing his daughter's killer with. Linam says he has secured a publisher for his book.
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"I don't have to be an angry man anymore, and I'm not," Linam said. "But I will say this — I am more determined than ever."
Linam, 60, has secured a publisher and said he thinks he will have bound copies in time for the 30th anniversary of the shooting this summer.
He said he isn't looking to cash in on three decades of personal horror. Once he covers costs with publisher Author House, he wants to devote profits to college and church programs that alert people about such tragedies as shootings in Daingerfield, Columbine, Fort Hood and others, he said.
He no longer lives in Daingerfield, but resides and operates a Western wear shop some 40 miles north in DeKalb. He has joined other survivors of the 1980 shooting in church safety seminars in Longview and abroad.
"Our world is not as safe as it used to be," Linam said. "Even though that may be true, it does not and cannot shut down the hope that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ."
Linam and other witnesses say Alvin Lee King III, a former Daingerfield math teacher, stormed into church services and began shooting. Two men were killed trying to get King out of the building, but he had fired enough bullets to injure at least 10 people and kill three church members, including Linam's 7-year-old daughter.
The shooting occurred one week before King was to go on trial on allegations that he molested his daughter. His case never went to trial — he committed suicide in a county jail in 1982. But Linam attended King's pretrial hearing, sneaking a shank he made of wood into the courthouse so it could pass through metal detectors.
A friend noticed the shank and guided Linam away from King before he had a chance, he said.
For most of the next three decades, Linam said he became introverted, passing from psychologists to support groups without letting go of his anger.
One day, a friend asked why he was so angry. Linam tossed him his journal. The next day, that friend, Dr. Charles Vance, told Linam, "I can help you."
"I had never heard those words," Linam said. "And that's when my life began to change."
Norman Crisp, 76, of Longview was pastor of First Baptist Church when the shooting occurred. A flu bug had prevented him from attending services that morning. He remembers the pandemonium when he arrived at the church after learning of the shooting.
Crisp, Linam and retired evangelist Billy Foote of Upshur County — who were all involved with the Daingerfield church in 1980 — have since helped law enforcement agencies like the Longview Police Department conduct seminars geared toward preparing church parishioners for the unthinkable, they said.
"I told Larry, 'After 29 years, all of a sudden all this is coming to the surface again,' " Crisp said. "God has a plan for this."
