Three days after his grandson allegedly murdered his wife and four children in their home on Thursday night, Allan Kendrick, lead pastor of Oasis of Praise Church in Bessemer, Alabama, said his family had been struggling to get help with his grandson’s mental illness from government agencies, including with Medicaid, to pay for his care.
“I watched him all these years try so hard, talk to every agency, talk to everybody. We tried everything, had him instituted in hospitals only to be discharged with no medication, no follow-up, no doctor, nothing,” Kendrick, 71, told his congregation during his sermon Sunday.
His grandson Brandon Allan Kendrick, 32, is accused of killing his wife, Kelse Kendrick, 24, his children Kaleb, 6, and Kynli, 2, along with their cousins Colton, 8, and Haley Daniels, 6, on Thursday night, The Daily Mail reported.
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Brandon Kendrick allegedly gunned down his family at the garage apartment they lived in on Pastor Kendrick’s property in West Blocton, about 40 miles south of Birmingham. Bibb County Sheriff Jody Wade told AL.com his office received a 911 call at 8:18 p.m. about a child who had been shot in the Greentree Drive area.
Charging documents say Brandon Kendrick shot his wife in the head with a handgun and gunned down the children, too. He is currently facing five counts of capital murder.
Members of his family told the Daily Mail that Brandon Kendrick struggled with schizophrenia, a condition that had worsened in the weeks before the massacre.
One family member said Brandon Kendrick also had a history of not taking his medication and that “Kelse and her children have been victims of domestic violence for years.”
Calls to the church by The Christian Post on Monday went unanswered, but Kendrick told his congregation on Sunday that had it not been for God protecting him and his wife, Gay, they could have died in the attack on Thursday, too.
“Ten minutes before I heard a gunshot, my grandson was sitting in my bedroom with me and Gay laughing, talking. [We] talked about the first time we ever took him to a restaurant for his 13th birthday. He had never been in a restaurant. We took him there for his birthday,” Pastor Kendrick said.
The pastor said that he and his wife had been caring for Brandon Kendrick since he was 12 after suffering years of sexual, physical and mental abuse.
“All he’d ever known for 12 years was abuse: physical, sexual, mental, drugs. When I got him at 12 years old, he weighed 58 pounds,” the pastor said.
“[He] was on nine different psychotic medicines. At 18, the system failed him, took him off disability, took him off medication because we couldn’t afford to buy. … They canceled his Medicaid.”
Pastor Kendrick said his grandson called 911 at about 1 a.m. last Thursday asking for help but was turned down.
Last Thursday night, just 10 minutes before they heard the sound of a gunshot, the family seemed to be having a good night.
“In the bedroom with me and Gay, we’re talking about the J. Alexander dinner we took him to, few other things with laughing and talking. His wife had gotten home. She came in, laughed with us a little while, left. He got up 10 minutes later. Pow!” Pastor Kendrick recalled.
“I told Gay, I said that’s a gunshot. She said, ‘Yeah, it was.’ She was sitting on a little sofa here,” he said, describing an area in the bedroom.
“She got up. I didn’t have my shoes on, so I’m putting my shoes on. He [Brandon] walks in our bedroom with a gun in his hand. She was closest to him. She grabbed the gun. It went off. I don’t know how it kept from hitting her,” Pastor Kendrick continued before noting, “Yeah, I do,” to applause from his congregation.
“Because our prayer team, that night, about an hour before this incident, our prayer team stood right here and joined hands and prayed for mine and Gay’s safety because I had reached out to them. I’d reached out to several of the church members. There were several assisting me and helping me trying to get some kind of help,” he explained. “So they prayed for us.”
Pastor Kendrick said after he managed to subdue his grandson, his grandson “didn’t know where he was at.”
“He started asking me and Gay. He said, ‘Nana, where am I at? Where’s Kelse? Poppy, why are you, why are you angry? What I do wrong?’ Ten minutes before that, he’s laughing, talking and having a pretty good time.”
Kendrick appeared to blame the massacre on the devil as he warned churchgoers to get right with God.
“Don’t you think that if you don’t have Jesus, that you going to walk out of here and everything’s going to be cool because you ain’t no match for the devil,” he said.
“‘Well, I’m not mentally ill.’ Maybe not, but do you think you’re strong enough to resist the devil if he were to possess you?” he asked. “Better get your heart right with God because you may be the next one on national news.”
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