On Sunday morning, June 22, 1980, worship at the First Baptist Church in Daingerfield, Texas, ended in tragedy when 45-year-old Alvin Lee King III entered during a hymn service armed with a Colt AR-15 SP1 semi-automatic rifle with a telescopic sight and bayonet and a Röhm RG-10 .22-caliber revolver. King, wearing military attire, announced this is war and opened fire on the congregation.

Five people were killed and ten were injured. Among those killed was 78-year-old African American woman Thelma Richardson. The text identifies King’s motive as resentment after church members declined to serve as character witnesses in his upcoming rape trial involving his daughter. King shot himself in the head at the scene but survived and was arrested on multiple counts of murder and attempted murder; he later died by suicide in custody on January 19, 1982.

Thelma Richardson is remembered as a devoted, kind member of the community whose death left a deep loss for family and Daingerfield.