As father recovers, Aurora family grieves loss of 2 girls

The Works family, clockwise from back left, Rachel, 16; Laurie, 18; Marie; Stephanie, 18; David and Grace. Rachel and Stephanie died in the shootings.

By Julie Poppen
Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Rev. Michael Ware sat and prayed with 16-year-old Rachel Works as she died of gunshot wounds at a Colorado Springs hospital Sunday night. Her older sister Stephanie, 18, died in the New Life Church parking lot after being gunned down as she left services with her family. The girls' father, David Works, was being treated for two gunshot wounds in his abdomen and groin - and just beginning to understand that two of his four daughters are gone.

Ware, an overseer of New Life Church who also is pastor at Victory Church in Westminster, had trouble putting into words the amount of grief the Aurora family is facing after losing two daughters to a shooter who police identified as 24-year-old Matthew Murray.

"I was with her when she passed away," Ware said of Rachel. "If you have children, you just think about your own children - how this family is going through such terrific grief." Ware said Rachel and Stephanie - both home-schooled, according to various news accounts - had done some missionary work overseas.

In a coincidence authorities are investigating, the sisters traveled to China last year with Youth With A Mission, a worldwide organization that runs the Arvada missionary training site where police say the same gunman killed two people 12 hours before the rampage in Colorado Springs. Killed in the Arvada attack were Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24.

The Works sisters participated in events at the Arvada location, an uncle told The Gazette in Colorado Springs. Ware said the family used to be members of Victory Church and for a while David Works, 51, ran his own revival ministry called David Works Ministries. Ware said Works underwent surgery after the shooting and was "going to do well and survive."

"I saw him in recovery," Ware said. "He asked about Rachel. At that time, she wasn't doing very well." Stephanie and Rachel also are survived by their mother, Marie; a younger sister, Grace; and Stephanie's twin, Laurie. Ware said the family is strong. "They're a really good, solid, strong family - a good Christian family," he said. "They trust the Lord."

Ware fondly recalls all four Works sisters. "Whether it was in Denver or at New Life, all their girls would just come and hug me as if I was their uncle or something," Ware said. "This is a tragic loss."

For the past six years, David Works was employed as an IT professional for First Data in Denver, according to First Data spokeswoman Staci Busby. The company plans to set up a fund for the family. "We cannot express how saddened we are by this terrible tragedy," a First Data statement read. "Our thoughts and prayers are with David and his family as they cope with the loss of their two daughters."

David Works is a seventh-generation grandson of Thomas Jefferson and has been active in the exclusive Monticello Association.

On the Eastern Mennonite University Web site, he weighed in on the controversial revelation that descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, a slave at the Monticello plantation, are biologically related. "Until you embrace the past, you can't really go into the future," Works wrote. "Otherwise, a part of you is still dragging the ball and chain of the past with you. I didn't cause slavery, and I'm bothered by being asked to take responsibility for it. But I have a responsibility to deal with the pain that is left over."