Evil in Plain Sight: Thomas Bruce and the Catholic Supply Store Murders: Ballwin, Missouri • November 19, 2018 • A True Crime Account($12.99Value)

Description

He was a former minister. His wife said he was too tender-hearted to bait a fishhook. On November 19, 2018, he walked into a Catholic supply store with a gun. On a quiet Monday afternoon in Ballwin, Missouri, three women were going about ordinary business inside a Catholic supply store on Manchester Road. One was a customer named Jamie Schmidt, a fifty-three-year-old woman of deep faith who had stopped to buy rosary-making materials for a women's retreat. She would not go home that evening. Thomas Bruce, a fifty-three-year-old former minister with no Missouri criminal record, had been watching. He left the store claiming he had forgotten his credit card. He came back through the front door with a 9mm handgun. What followed in the back of that store left one woman dead, two survivors permanently marked by what they had witnessed and endured, and a community shaken to its foundation. This is the complete true crime account of the attack, the investigation, and the justice that followed — drawn entirely from the public record: • The attack: what happened inside the Catholic Supply store on November 19, 2018 • Jamie Schmidt: the life and legacy of the woman who was killed • The survivors: their courage in court, and the long road after • The investigation: the business card, the DNA, and the evidence that caught him • The Jefferson County attack: a 77-year-old victim identifies Bruce from TV coverage • The road rage dashcam: warning signs that preceded the murders • The Delphi connection, the 1985 Tennessee cold case, and ongoing investigations • Diane Bruce: the wife of 24 years who had no idea who she had married • The plea, the sentencing, and life without the possibility of parole A true crime account for readers who want to understand not just what happened, but who it happened to, who did it, and how the community of faith around it found its way forward. Evil in plain sight. Justice, in the end, found it.