Nation in brief

Shooter kills mother, pastor

ATLANTA - A woman opened fire at an Atlanta church before services started Sunday morning, killing her mother and the minister before committing suicide.

Congregants of Turner Monumental AME Church said Shelia W. Chaney Wilson, 43, was agitated when she came to the church, in the Kirkwood neighborhood on the city's east side.

Wilson apparently shot the Rev. Johnny Clyde Reynolds after he greeted her and was walking away with his back to her, said Atlanta police spokesman Sgt. John Quigley. Police believe Wilson then shot Jennie Mae Robinson once in the head before turning the gun on herself.

One woman in the sanctuary at the time fled after the first shot was fired, and the other took cover behind a pulpit, Quigley said. He said an assistant pastor came in after hearing shots and found the three bodies on the floor.

Wilson's cousin, Nekeshia Burton, said Wilson went to the church early in the morning to talk to Reynolds, 62.

Assistant Pastor Christy Miller said the pastor had just finished teaching Sunday school and was walking through the sanctuary when he stopped to talk with Wilson and Robinson, 67.

Geraldine Andrews, the pastor's daughter-in-law and a friend of Wilson's family, said Robinson recently took her daughter out of a mental health facility.

The shootings happened before most worshipers arrived for church. When they got there and heard what had happened, church members sobbed and hugged in front of the building.

"We're such a loving church, a family church," Miller said. "We'll support each other through this."

RUNOFF FOR HISTORY BOOKS: The conservative Republican son of Indian immigrants and the Cajun woman who is his opponent in the race for Louisiana governor thanked voters Sunday for upending decades of Southern custom. Thirty-two-year-old Bobby Jindal, a political neophyte, easily topped a field of veteran politicians Saturday, advancing to a Nov. 15 runoff. He and Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco broke the decades-old hold of white men on the governor's race in this and other Southern states. He wound up with 33 percent of the vote; Blanco finished with 18 percent.

OLDEST AMERICAN DIES: Elena Slough, documented as the nation's oldest person, died in her sleep Sunday at the nursing home in Trenton, N.J., where her daughter died three days before. She was 114 or 115, according to different sources. Slough, who was born Elena Rodenbaugh in a log cabin in Horsham, Pa., lived through 21 presidents and seven U.S. wars.

FORMER ARK. GOVERNOR DIES: Former Arkansas Gov. Sid McMath, who had become a powerful prosecutor and the state's leader by age 40, died at his home in Little Rock. He was 91. In his book, Promises Kept, McMath chronicled years of public service until his 1952 defeat for a third term as governor in the midst of scandal.

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