Clifton, USA - A gunman invaded a small church in Clifton, N.J., during services on Sunday and killed his estranged wife and critically wounded two other people with shots to the head in what appeared to be the climax of a violent domestic quarrel that had reached from California to India to New Jersey over the past year, authorities and witnesses said.
As more than 100 worshipers dived under the pews of St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church, the assailant, after an argument in the foyer, fired four shots from a silver handgun, striking his wife, who had refused to leave the church with him; a relative who had recently taken her in; and a man who either happened upon or tried to intervene in the confrontation, the police and witnesses said.
The shootings happened at 11:44 a.m., a witness said.
The gunman ran from the church and drove away in a green convertible Jeep Wrangler with a black soft top and the California license 5JHD200, said the police, who identified him as Joseph Pallipurath, 27, of Sacramento. He remained at large Sunday night as the New Jersey State Police and law enforcement authorities in northern New Jersey widened a manhunt on highways and at transportation terminals.
The victims were taken to St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson, where Mr. Pallipurath’s wife, Reshma James, 24, died about 4 p.m., the police said. The other victims, both listed in very critical condition, were identified by church members as Ms. James’s relative, Silvy Perincheril, 47, of Hawthorne, N.J., who is the principal of the church’s Sunday school, and Dennis John Malloosseril, 23, a church director.
Members of the congregation, families of Indian descent from across northern New Jersey and some from as far away as Long Island, gathered outside the steepled red-brick, one-story church in the harsh afternoon cold, huddling in bright silk dresses and shirts, consoling one another, weeping and awaiting word on the victims.
“It was very scary,” Anna Manimalethu said. “My kids are still scared.”
The Clifton police described Mr. Pallipurath as armed and dangerous, 5 feet 8 inches tall and 160 pounds. They said active restraining orders had been issued in California and New Jersey against him after domestic violence complaints by his wife, who had moved recently to New Jersey. Detective Capt. Robert Rowan said it appeared the gunman had driven from California to try to force her to return with him.
Members of the church gave a more elaborate account of the woman’s hardships, citing an arranged and abusive marriage that had left her terrified. A family friend, Aniyan Panavelil, said Ms. James, a registered nurse who grew up in India, had wed Mr. Pallipurath, an American, in India a year ago in an arrangement made by their families.
It was unclear if they had met before their wedding. Mr. Panavelil said the husband returned first to the United States and she joined him in Sacramento in January, and soon became a victim of domestic violence. Mr. Panavelil said the couple returned to India for a month to try to work things out with counselors, but the effort failed.
“He said he couldn’t do it anymore,” Mr. Panavelil said. As for Ms. James, he said, “He was torturing her too much.” The couple separated when they returned to this country, Mr. Pallipurath going to California and Ms. James to New Jersey, where she took refuge with Ms. Perincheril.
Ms. James began attending services with Ms. Perincheril at St. Thomas Knanaya, where some 60 families — first-generation Indian immigrants and their children — worship in a Christian tradition that traces its heritage to Abraham and its culture to Jews of the Aramaic-speaking regions of Israel and Syria, who migrated in 345 A.D. to the Malabar coast, in what is now the state of Kerala, in southwest India.
In recent decades, thousands of Knanaya people have migrated to North America, starting churches in Canada, New York, Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere. They preserve many customs modeled on Jewish traditions, including the menorah, unleavened bread at Passover and wedding canopies, and they practice endogamous marriage.
The parish of St. Thomas Knanaya was founded in 1987 as part of the Universal Orthodox Church, with allegiance to the Holy See of Antioch. Most members formerly belonged to St. Peter’s in Yonkers, and the congregation met in rented spaces. But in February 2000, it bought the building at 186 Third Street in Clifton, set on a residential block in a working-class neighborhood 10 miles west of Manhattan.
On Sunday morning, the congregation was nearing the end of its regular service in Malayalam, a Dravidian language spoken on the Malabar Coast, when the gunman arrived. The Eucharist had been distributed, the Rev. Father Thomas Abraham had given his sermon and worshipers were saying a prayer for the dead and preparing to disperse.
Suja Alummoottil, 40, of Stockholm, N.J., was in the foyer with Ms. Perincheril and Ms. James, discussing an essay contest for Sunday school classes. The man who came in, she said, wore a black hooded sweatshirt and light-colored slacks. He was thin and bearded, and he interrupted to say he was Reshma James’s husband and had come to take her home.
“He was telling her, ‘I’ve been roaming around without my wife for too long,’ ” Ms. Alummoottil said. Ms. James did not respond, but Ms. Perincheril asked him to leave and talk it over later. She was worried, though, and asked Ms. Alummoottil to go into the sanctuary and get help.
“I don’t want you going anywhere,” the man said.
But Ms. Alummoottil ignored him, entered the sanctuary and summoned Ms. Perincheril’s husband, Thampi. They were returning to the foyer when they heard the shots.
“Everyone got down on the floor,” Ms. Alummoottil said.
Liya Manimalethu, 16, said the congregation had been kneeling in prayer for the dead and was just rising when she heard the shots. The sounds were confusing at first — “Like a flagpole went down,” was the way she described it. “Then people started screaming and crying. Someone told us to get down, so we all got down.”
“We were finishing the Holy Mass,” Father Abraham said. “It was almost over and then I heard the gunshots. There were three to four shots, and I saw people running around.”
Moments later, parishioners found Ms. James, Ms. Perincheril and Mr. Malloosseril shot in the head and lying in the foyer.
“This is a very unfortunate incident, very tragic,” Father Abraham said. “I am still traumatized.”