Five years after two monks are shot and killed and two others are injured at the abbey, the doors remain unlocked, and the deaths haven't shaken monks' beliefs.
CONCEPTION, Mo. — The doors at Conception Abbey are still unlocked, and forgiveness was the reigning theme as the members of the rural monastery quietly remember a day of horror five years ago Sunday.
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Lloyd Robert Jeffress, a 71-year-old retiree, walked into the abbey 90 miles north of Kansas City on the morning of June 10, 2002, and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rife, killing two monks and leaving two others seriously injured. Jeffress later killed himself. Advertisement
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Investigators later noted Jeffress was still unhappy over the Catholic church granting an annulment of his marriage in 1979 and was in poor health.
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If anything, the shooting helped reinforce the teachings of St. Benedict, the founder of the abbey's religious order, who instructed monks to keep death before their eyes as a way to gain perspective of how they live their lives.
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