Random attack in Madrid church leaves one dead

His name was Iván Berral Cid and he was a 34-year-old homeless man with mental problems and a police record for drug trafficking and gender violence. On Thursday, Berral murdered a pregnant woman inside a Madrid church, wounded another woman and then shot himself. Doctors were able to save the baby, which was due to be born on Saturday, although it may have suffered irreversible brain damage as it was born in cardiac arrest.

The tragedy occurred at the Church of Santa María del Pinar, in the north of the city, where Rocío Piñeiro, 36, was attending mass with her mother, who had traveled from Pontevedra to be with her daughter when she gave birth this weekend. The attacker walked in, went straight up to the pregnant woman and shot her point blank in the head with a modified starting pistol.

After that, the gunman shot a 52-year-old woman twice — although doctors said she is recovering well from her wounds — and finally put the barrel of the gun inside his own mouth and pulled the trigger.

Police have ruled out any prior relationship between the attacker and his victims. Berral had been in and out of a police station since the age of 20, and for the last few months he had been living in shelters and on the street. Police found a note on his body with the following statement: "The devil is after me."

An eyewitness said it was an act of "supreme hatred," and that the dead woman's mother went into shock, screaming: "My daughter's been killed!" over and over.

Emergency services were unable to do anything for Rocío, who died instantly, but they practiced a cesarean section on her to extract the baby, who was taken to the neonatal ward at La Paz Hospital, along with the wounded woman. "Our priority was the baby since we could no longer do anything for the mother," said Ceferina Cuesta, the doctor who did the C-section. A hospital spokesman said on Friday that the family had not authorized them to disclose how the baby was doing.

Francisco Santos, the parish priest, said that the attacker had been marauding around the church all day and went inside to ask about Mass times. He seemed "anxious, not upset." But his behavior was "not aggressive." Other witnesses confirmed that Berral was seen in the area wearing Bermuda shorts and a white straw hat. The gun was concealed inside a paddle tennis racket sleeve.