GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – The longtime conductor of the Crystal Cathedral Orchestra – a composer and arranger who worked with Celine Dion and John Tesh – shot himself to death at the soaring glass-and-steel church Friday after a nine-hour standoff that started just before a Christmas pageant was to begin.
Johnnie Carl, 57, got into argument Thursday evening with another employee, went back to his office and fired four shots, then barricaded himself in a bathroom and committed suicide as police officers tried to talk to him, authorities said.
Carl, conductor at the cathedral for nearly 30 years, had grappled with depression, authorities said.
The 128-foot-high church, designed in part by architect Philip Johnson and completed in 1980, is home to the Rev. Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral Ministries and claims a congregation of more than 10,000. Carl directed the music on Schuller’s internationally televised “Hour of Power” broadcast from the cathedral.
Carl also arranged or recorded music for such artists as Dion, Tesh, Michael Crawford, the London Symphony and Lee Greenwood. He was an arranger and orchestrator on Tesh’s “Live from Red Rocks” and was an arranger on Dion’s Christmas special “These Are Special Times,” Schuller spokesman Michael Nason said.
The 78-year-old Schuller came to the police command post set up near the cathedral late Thursday and taped a message for Carl, but police did not have the chance to play it to him.
“Johnnie was a beloved member of our church family and close personal friend,” Schuller said in a statement. “He was a creative genius whose beautiful arrangements and superb conducting set new levels of excellence for sacred music.”
Nason said Carl had spoken about his depression in the past. Nason said Carl, a married father of three, had last talked to him about his troubles about a year ago – “just a sense of personal pressures, job and things around him, dealing with people around him.”
The first shots were fired less than two hours before the scheduled start of the cathedral’s annual “Glory of Christmas” holiday show, for which Carl had arranged the prerecorded music. Some 100 cast members were preparing for the first of Thursday’s two programs, which include the cathedral’s world-renowned pipe organ and a Nativity scene featuring live animals.
The programs were canceled Thursday but were scheduled to go on Friday.
After the gunfire broke out, children in a day care center on the grounds were rushed to safety, while staff members and others were slowly evacuated.
Associated Press
A churchgoer sits inside the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., on Friday after composer Johnnie Carl shot himself to death inside the church, ending a nine-hour standoff with police.
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