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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK
Cleveland Priest Killing Suspect Arraignment Today
Aired December 10, 2002 - 06:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: A man accused of killing a Roman Catholic priest heads to court this morning in Ohio. The suspect had been training to become a Franciscan Brother.
Jeff Flock joins us by phone from Cleveland with details on this.
Do we know why this man allegedly did this?
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we're not 100 percent sure. We hope to get more details this morning in about -- oh, it's about two-and-a-half hours or so Daniel Montgomery will be in court in Cleveland. He's 37 years old.
As you report, he was training to be a Franciscan Brother at St. Stanislaus Church where the murder of Father William Gulas took place. First parishioners there thought that Gulas had died in a fire in the rectory, then an X-ray of his body revealed a bullet was in his chest so they learned that he didn't die in the fire. In fact, he was murdered. Then the final shocker that police had arrested Montgomery, a man who had been, as we said, training to be a Franciscan Brother there. They knew him as Brother Dan. And in fact, he had served communion to many of them on Sunday and comforted them after Gulas' murder. So they are really shocked here -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Now was this Brother Dan a student of this priest?
FLOCK: Yes, he was studying to be a Franciscan Brother so he'd been assigned to the church to kind of help out. I guess one of the warning signs is he had been in training to be a Franciscan Brother for seven years and had not -- essentially hadn't gotten his wings yet and apparently, according to the Franciscan order, had been recently told that he was being dropped from the training program.
COSTELLO: I know there's a large Catholic community in Cleveland so this must be very tough going for them.
FLOCK: Indeed. St. Stanislaus is really the rock of this community, and Father Gulas had been instrumental in restoring the church. It had been crumbling when he came on about 10 years ago. Raised a lot of money, had the church, you know, renovated and was very popular in this community. People are just -- they just cannot believe this has happened.
COSTELLO: No, we see the vigil being held there last night. And you're going to be in court in a few hours, we'll let you get to it.
Jeff Flock, thanks. FLOCK: Thanks, Carol.
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