Warning signs mounted before Texas shooter entered church with her son, former mother-in-law says

HOUSTON– The former mother-in-law of the woman who opened fire at a Houston megachurch tried for years to warn authorities and others, including church staff, about her ex-daughter-in-law’s mental health problems, she said Wednesday. But Walli Carranza said nothing came of her actions.

Carranza said she believes systemic failures and lax gun laws ultimately led to Sunday’s shooting at celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, where Genesse Moreno entered the church with her 7-year-old son and opened fire in a shootout. hallway. The shooting injured two people, including Moreno’s son, who was shot in the head. Moreno was shot by security officers with whom she exchanged gunfire.

“You can’t put the responsibility on the mind when the mind is so very sick. A healthy mother would never put her child in a situation like this. That’s not mental health. So sometimes we don’t have to find or blame the guilty party. All we can say is that there are systems that failed,” Carranza told The Associated Press in an interview.

Carranza said her grandson Samuel was in critical condition but was improving.

Several questions about the shooting remained unanswered Wednesday, including Moreno’s motive and details about how she obtained the AR-style rifle she used.

Carranza said her son Enrique Carranza and Moreno met at the University of Houston and married in September 2015. They divorced in 2022.

Carranza said her son, currently incarcerated in Florida, did not want to divorce Moreno and only “wanted his wife to get well.”

Carranza said Child Protective Services was notified after Moreno was accused by nurses of putting adult medications into her son’s feeding tube after his birth in 2016. Other concerns, including allegations that Moreno left guns unattended in her home, were addressed also forwarded to CPS. but no action was taken, Carranza said.

“My biggest concern for Sam was that he would shoot himself, and we warned about that,” Carranza said. She added that in January 2020, when Moreno and her grandson visited her in Colorado, Samuel pulled a gun from his diaper bag and gave it to her.

Melissa Landford, spokesperson for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said CPS could not comment on the case for confidentiality reasons.

Carranza also said her attorney sent emails to Lakewood Church in 2020 and 2021 asking for help in intervening in Moreno’s fight, believing Moreno’s mother attended the church.

Church spokesman Don Iloff said Wednesday that records show Moreno attended services in Lakewood “sporadically” for a few years, but there is no record of her being at the church after 2022.

Iloff said they were still searching but had found no records showing Moreno’s mother attended the church. He added that church officials had also found no record of the emails sent by Carranza’s lawyer, but that they were still searching.

Iloff said that in situations where someone asks for help, the church can offer them spiritual and biblical guidance.

“If we had reached out and (Moreno) had accepted guidance, we certainly would have been happy to provide that,” Iloff said.

In a video message on Instagram, Osteen invited people to attend a special service at the church next Sunday to celebrate a “time of healing and recovery.”

“We are not people of fear. We are people of faith. God has us in the palm of His hand, and this is not the time to back down. This is the time to turn to God, to come together,” Osteen said.

Texas law generally prohibits someone convicted of a crime from owning a gun for several years after being released from prison. Crimes related to domestic violence will also result in a ban.

But Moreno’s extensive list of crimes, ranging from counterfeiting a $100 bill to shoplifting and assault, did not meet that threshold.

Texas also does not have a so-called “red flag” law, which typically allows law enforcement officers or family members to ask a judge to order the seizure or surrender of guns from someone considered dangerous, often because of mental health issues or threats of violence.

Carranza said she met with FBI agents for hours on Tuesday and discussed reports she had filed on Moreno over the years.

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Associated Press writer Jim Vertuno in Austin contributed to this report.

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