An elderly pastor has described how he wrestled a gun away from his grandson after he allegedly gunned down his wife and four young children.
Brandon Allan Kendrick, 32, faces five counts of capital murder after the mass shooting with a 9m pistol at his grandfather property in rural Alabama.
His wife Kelse Kendrick, 24, was found dead alongside their son Kaleb, six, and Kynli, two, and their cousins Colton, eight, and Haley Daniels, six, last Thursday night.
Kendrick allegedly gunned down his family at the garage apartment they lived in on Allan Kendrick’s property in West Blocton, about 40 miles south of Birmingham.
The 71-year-old recounted the episode at the end of a lengthy sermon at Oasis of Praise Church in nearby Bessemer, where he is senior pastor, on Sunday.
Allan also revealed to his congregation that Kendrick was ‘physically, sexually, and mentally’ abused until his grandparents got custody when he was 12.
Kendrick suffered from schizophrenia and family explained to DailyMail.com how his mental state worsened in the weeks before the massacre.
‘Kelse and her children have been victims of domestic violence for years,’ one family member said, claiming he had a history of not taking his medication.
Kendrick pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in Bibb County Courthouse on Monday. He will face court again on September 26.
Allan told his followers he was watching TV in the main house with his wife Gay Kendrick when they heard what sounded like a gunshot.
‘I didn’t have my shoes on so I’m putting my shoes on and he (Kendrick) walked in our bedroom with a gun in his hand,’ he said.
‘[Gay] was closest to him and she grabbed the gun, it went off – I don’t know how it kept from hitting her.’
Allan then theatrically corrected himself to say that he did know how the bullet missed them – God intervened.
He revealed he was so concerned about Kendrick that he spoke to members of his congregation hours before the massacre.
‘Our prayer team that night, about an hour before this incident, stood right here and joined hands and prayed for mine and Gay’s safety,’ he said.
‘Anyway, I was able to subdue him, and once that happened he didn’t know where he was at, he started asking me and Gay “where am I? Where’s Kelse? Poppy, why are you angry? What did I do wrong?”‘
Allan did not appear to have shared his concerns with authorities, and did not prevent Kelse and the four children from being around him that night.
The pastor explained his grandson’s actions came out of nowhere as minutes earlier he appeared happy and no threat to anyone.
‘Ten minutes before I heard a gunshot, my grandson was sitting in his bedroom with me and Gay… laughing, talking, and having a pretty good time,’ he told the congregation.
‘We were talking about the J Alexander dinner we took him to [and] a few others things, just laughing, talking.
‘His wife had gotten home, she came in, laughed with us a little while [and] left. He got up [and] 10 minutes later, pow!’
Allan detailed Kendrick’s history of abuse and mental illness, and how he had never even been to a restaurant before they took him to one for his 13th birthday.
‘All he’d ever known for 12 years was abuse – physical, sexual, mental, drugs. When I got him at 12 years old he weighed 58lbs [and] he was on nine different psychotic medicines,’ he said.
‘At 18, the system failed him, took him off of disability, took him off medication because we couldn’t afford to buy it, because they canceled his Medicaid.
‘Gay and I watched him all these years, [we tried] so hard, talked to every agency, talked to everybody, we tried everything, had him institutionalized in hospitals – only to be discharged with no medication, no follow up, no doctor, nothing.’
Allan claimed his grandson considered his mental state to be such an emergency that hours before he shot his family, he called 911.
‘One o’clock on Thursday morning, he’s calling 911 asking for help – only to be turned down,’ he said.
Allan told Kelse’s grandfather Bill Morrow how he stumbled upon the crime and confronted his grandson, according to a conversation recounted to Daily Mail.com by Kelse’s uncle Eli Morrow.
‘Brandon came at him with the gun, and he fought it away from him. Then he walked over [to the house] and found out what happened. So they were as surprised as everyone else, they didn’t expect it,’ Eli said.
‘Brandon said, ‘Why did you beat me up?’ and Allan told him what he had done… and he just said, ‘Oh’.’
All five were found dead with gunshot wounds to their heads, other than Haley, who was still breathing and rushed to hospital, but did not survive.
Kaden was the last victim and shot outside the garage apartment, possibly while running for his life, which is how Allan heard the gunfire.
‘Allan said the door was knocked off its hinges, almost like she had locked him out and he broke the door down before shooting them. I’m assuming they were having some kind of argument,’ Eli said.
Allan used Sunday’s explanation of what happened to berate his congregation into ‘getting right with God’, because life was unpredictable.
‘Don’t you think, if you don’t have Jesus, that you gonna walk out of here and everything is going to be cool, ’cause you ain’t no match for the devil,’ he said.
He said maybe those listening weren’t mentally ill like Kendrick but they were not strong enough to resist the devil if he were to possess them.
‘Better get your heart right with God – because you may be the next one on national news,’ he said.
‘You don’t know if the person you’re with in an elevator, or you’ve got your back to in Walmart… who could have a psychotic failure at any moment and you never even hear the gunshot, or the knife stab… you don’t even know it til feel something sting. You better be ready, at all times.’
Allan asked if anyone had issues with mental illness or was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, PTSD, or ‘a high level’ of ADHD, and claimed ‘God can heal you, if you’ll let him’.
He then spoke more about Kendrick, alluding to him not doing what he was supposed to do to manage his illness.
‘You can rebel, you can have a granddaddy that can tell you every day what you need to do, give you scripture every day, pray over you every day, and you can continue to rebel until your life is gone… don’t ever tell me God didn’t give you a chance,’ he said.
Throughout the rest of the hour-long sermon, Allan appeared jovial and danced to Christian songs. He explained how he refused to change a single thing about Sunday’s service despite the family tragedy.
Allan called 911 about 8.18pm, and then got on the phone to Bill, Eli explained.
‘Bill, you need to get down here, Brandon has shot Kelse all the kids in the head,’ family said Allan told him.
Bill and his daughter Jessica, who is Colton and Haley’s mother, rushed to the property but found it cordoned off by police when they arrived about 9pm.
Eli’s wife Brittany Morrow explained that the massacre followed a last-minute decision by Kelse to give in to Kendrick’s demands one last time.
‘All of the children were supposed to spend the night at [Bill’s] home,’ Brittany told DailyMail.com.
‘Brandon repeatedly begged and pleaded with her to come home and she gave in… within an hour they were all shot in the head.’
Brittany explained that Colton and Haley’s mother Jessica Morrow, 35, was having major surgery the next morning, so there was no option but to send them with Kelse.
‘We live 45 minutes away. I wish to God they had asked us to take them for the night,’ she said.
‘What we are struggling with the most, is that it was a last-minute decision to take them over there, it was never in the plan because they knew he had been acting crazy.’
Kelse’s car was broken down so Jessica dropped all five of them off at home on Green Tree Drive about 7pm.
Kelse is Eli’s niece by his older sister, who has since died, and Bill’s grandfather, and the Morrow and Kendrick families have been intertwined for generations.
Eli had custody of Colton and Haley from January 2021 until last November, when a judge allowed them to return to Jessica.
‘Jessica finally got her kids back, and then this happens,’ Brittany said.
‘I am devastated and destroyed… Eli and I had full custody of them for almost three years and they were my babies.’
Police rushed to the scene and arrested Kendrick after discovering the bodies, Bibb County Sheriff Jody Wade said.
‘It’s absolutely horrible. It’s unimaginable what the family is going through, what the friends of the family are experiencing, what the community is feeling right now,’ he said.
‘It was just a horrific scene that even seasoned officers told me it is the worst thing they’ve ever seen.
‘As officers are going, they are saying there are more children that have been shot.’
Wade said Kendrick was yet to tell police why he did it, but ‘I don’t know what motive he could give us that would justify what he did anyway’.
Kendrick was booked into the Bibb County Jail about 3.30am and denied bail.
He is charged with four counts of capital murder of a child under 14, and one count of capital murder in the killing of two or more people in one act.
Oasis of Praise Church held a prayer vigil with more than 300 members last Friday night, saying proceeds from the collection plate would go to the families.
‘Pastor wanted us to relay to all those asking if they can do anything: ‘Tell everyone asking if they can do something that they can be at church Sunday at 10am’,’ the church wrote on its Facebook page.
‘The church has committed to helping the families with expenses. If you would like to be a part of this effort, please give your donation to the church’s benevolence fund.
‘All donated money will be directed towards the needs of the families involved.’
Eli Morrow also started a GoFundMe page to help pay for the funerals, with his wife explaining the family didn’t want the funeral at Allan’s church.
‘None of the family feel comfortable having it there, he’s offered to have them cremated and have a memorial at his church, but the family has declined,’ Brittany said.
‘But we started the fundraiser because we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for five funerals.’