Parishioners at the True Cornerstone Church on Halls Mill Road in Mobile, Alabama are shocked and saddened after the news that a local pastor, Elder Ulysses Woodward is dead in an attempted murder-suicide at their church last week.
The tragedy occurred after prophetess Alisha Woodard served up a powerful message, friends say.
“She was the speaker that night and she did a fantastic job. The church was so animated and inspired. Everybody was high in the Holy Ghost,” Pastor Derek Scott Gandy told The Christian Post Wednesday. “We just had an incredible worship experience that night. It was just fire from Heaven.”
Gandy and his wife Kula said Woodard preached from 2 Kings in the Bible about the story of Elisha the prophet and the Shunammite woman.
“She was talking about how the Shunammite woman didn’t ask for the son that she received, but when she received that blessing she fought for the blessing that she had received from the man of God and how even when she went to go get the man of God, when the servant even asked how she was doing, she said it’s well. So she kept the faith, she kept pushing on and going on, and when she got to the man of God she just reminded him,” Kula said.
“She was just encouraging us all that even when things like death is all around, even when it seems like the blessing does not look like it’s gonna be there, just keep on pressing toward it.”
But at the end of the service, Woodard’s husband, Elder Ulysses Woodard, showed up and shot her outside the church and then shot and killed himself. He was pronounced dead at the scene while Alisha was taken to a local hospital where she is reportedly recovering.
The couple led the True Word of Deliverance Church of God in Prichard, but had been estranged for about two weeks now.
“It (the estrangement) was very fresh,” said Gandy.
“She was calling on Jesus, even with the bullet in her she was calling on Jesus,” said Kula.
The victim and the shooter were both friends of the pastor and his wife.
“I can’t preach faith if I don’t live by faith cannot preach determination if you don’t live by it,” said Gandy.
“The Devil is not going to get the victory, at all, he is not going to get the victory,” said Kula. “To be able to come and pray for her and see she was already praying that she was already calling on Jesus, I already knew Jesus was going to take care of her.”
“I’m still alive, that young lady is still alive,” Kula added.
Pastor Grady said Elder Woodard, “wasn’t a monster.”
“I didn’t see this coming. He wasn’t a monster, at least not that I’ve ever seen,” he said.
True Cornerstone Church is accepting donations to help with recovery efforts, as Elder Woodard led police on a brief car chase after shooting his wife, then returned to the church and crashed his vehicle into the building before taking his own life. You can support the church by clicking here.