A man in Missouri was arrested after he kidnapped three people at a major Catholic supply store, sodomized them, and executed one of them:
Authorities have charged a 53-year-old man in connection to the murder of a woman inside a West St. Louis County Catholic Supply store.
Thomas Bruce, 53, was charged with 17 criminal counts including first-degree murder, three counts of sodomy and three counts of kidnapping. Other charges include first-degree burglary, tampering with evidence and armed criminal action.
According to the police investigation, Bruce pretended to be a customer at the Catholic Supply Store Monday afternoon, exited and then re-entered the store displaying a handgun.
Police say Bruce ordered the three victims to the back of the store where he forced them to disrobe at gunpoint and proceeded to expose himself to the victims. Bruce then demanded the victims to perform a sexual act on him, according to police.
According to the investigation, Jaime Schmidt, 53, of House Springs, refused Bruce’s demands and was shot for not complying. Bruce fled the scene shortly after.
Thomas Bruce, of Imperial, Mo., was taken into custody by police at his home early Wednesday morning.
News 4 crews saw a heavy police presence at a trailer park on Geranium Drive in Imperial around noon Wednesday. St. Louis County police vehicles were on scene, along with Jefferson County cars. Neighbors tell News 4 as many as one hundred officers arrived at the home around 5:00 a.m. Wednesday.
Bruce’s employer told News 4 he has not heard from him in 12 days.
According to a LinkedIn page affiliated with Bruce, he worked at the Jewish Community Center of Greater St. Louis and was a department manager at a Schnucks store.
He lists himself as a Navy veteran, serving from 1983-1994. He also claims to have volunteered as a pastor at the Cape County Jail.
According to court documents, Bruce has lived in 27 different residences and has filed for bankruptcy twice.
“She was a great person. Very much kept the family together,” Jamie Schmidt’s sister-in-law Cathy Soulon said Tuesday. “Just a perfect person. She was a housewife for many, many years. Then she finally started to get a job and get out in the social world and this happens. It’s mind-boggling. It just goes to show how messed up this world really is.” (source, source, source)
In the other link at Heavy.com, evidence shows that he was a die-hard Trump supporter and advocate of conservative causes.
Why do I mention this? What relevance does it have?
I mention it here as a reminder that, as I have often stated before, that there is no such thing as evil that is limited to one group. Certainly one can say that there are patterns of behavior found more commonly in some groups rather than others, owing usually to philosophical differences that permit or exaggerate certain behaviors, but the idea that one “cannot” do something is a foreign concept because the potential for good or evil resides in all men.
It is true that the “left” is degenerate, and if this story was about a “left wing” person who did something like this, it would and should rightly so be discussed because it is sick. However, where is the discussion about it when the “right” does it? The discussion is not there, and it is as though the story never even happened. Likewise, when one hears about “Catholic” and crime, it is often discussed in terms of “sexual abuse of minors,” which is being reported to attack the Faith and religion as a whole, since the reports almost never mention how in over 80% of cases consistently it is a sodomite priest sexually assaulting a teenage male. However, when a case such as this attack happens against a Catholic institution, which while it needs further investigation could potentially be considered a genuine “hate crime,” there is again the same deafening silence.
Balance in life is always important because, while there is a true version of events, often times said events have to be discerned from multiple sides with different perspectives. Bias is a normal part of human life, and it is dishonest to say that one is “bias-free” because it means that one does not have a perspective on anything. That said, one’s bias is to aligned as closely as possible with objective truth and to seek said truth regardless of how difficult it may be to say, and to place it into context with the series of events that lead up to it.