Louisiana Pastor Danny Prenell Jr. shoots wife, Gabby, then self in front of couple’s 3 kids at Mississippi hotel. Attempted murder suicide follows haunting Facebook post. Authorities have yet to confirm if either husband and wife survived shooting.
‘I may not be a perfect man, but I’ll always be a family man.’ These are the words a Louisiana pastor posted on Facebook before shooting his wife then self inside a hotel in Mississippi on Wednesday.
Danny Prenell Jr., 25, had been the lead pastor at the Bright Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Pineville, Louisiana. The man’s wife was identified as Gabby Prenell, 27. The couple’s three children were present at the hotel where the shootings took place and allegedly witnessed the shootings.
In a Facebook post that was sent from the Hampton Inn hotel, Prenell captioned a picture with his wife and kids: ‘I may not be a perfect man, but I’ll always be a family man.’
Not immediately clear if whether husband or wife survived shooting
A picture from the scene published by The Enterprise-Journal showed blood-stained floors close to the elevators in the hotel’s lobby in McComb, Mississippi. The shooting took place around 3:30pm at the Hampton Inn. Prenell is alleged to have shot his wife twice and then himself, investigators said.
To date investigators have yet to confirm whether the pastor or his wife survived the attempted murder suicide.
A Facebook post from a friend of Gabby’s said that the mother was ‘still fighting’ in an intensive care unit.
Both husband and wife were rushed to the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Their children are in the custody of child protective services.
According to Prenell’s Facebook page, he’s a former sheriff’s deputy with the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Department up until as recently as December 2022.
On April 6, Prenell paid tribute to his wife on her birthday calling her ‘my queen’ and ‘the woman that I love and owe my life to.
‘…you’re a great mother, wife, and my best friend. I’m proud to be your husband’
‘I’ve watched your growth on all levels and you’re a great mother, wife, and my best friend. I’m proud to be your husband because you are a woman of class, discretion, integrity, and most importantly….you’re a woman of God,’ he added.
The pastor regularly spoke about his self-growth in Facebook posts.
‘At the age of 25, I often hear that I’m far beyond my years. However, I never get satisfied with where I am….I’m constantly looking for more,’ he wrote on April 16.
‘People with small minds will keep you locked up into what can fit into their heads. The God I serve doesn’t have a limit, and I’m staying faithful because I know my cup shall run over,’ he added.
Domestic shootings continue to be blight across U.S
Domestic shootings continue to be a common phenomenon in the U.S. They’ve happened nearly every 3.5 weeks for the last two decades on average. In 2022 there were 17 of them, according to a database, compiled by multiple media organizations.
Ten were murder-suicides, and 14 were shootings. The database defines a mass killing as four or more people slain, not including the assailant.
Sequatchie, Tennessee, is one of more than 30 communities sent reeling by a family mass killing in the last two years, a list that includes communities of wealth and poverty and spares no race or class. A husband in the region just last week killed his estranged wife, her daughter, himself and three children, just weeks after the woman taking out an order of protection.
Motives can remain speculative in family killings in which assailants take their own lives, but police often cite financial or relationship issues as the causes.
Family mass killings are in fact the most common type of mass killing, making up about 45 percent of the 415 mass shootings since 2006, according to the database. They happen twice as frequently as mass shootings in which members of the public are killed.
