To think that this happened in Ashburton

It was a story that could have come from Stephen King's fertile imagination, a man walks into an office, starts shooting, kills two people and wounds another.  It was one of those macabre crimes that could not have been foreseen or prevented. Ashburton is a quiet prosperous country town, a by and large happy place. Russell John Tully was a misfit. Everybody tried to help him. He was on a benefit, a friend put him up for three months, Work and Income found him a place to stay at, he lasted for four days, they offered him accommodation in Timaru, not a very long way from Ashburton, but he insisted on staying in Ashburton, slept rough, and in the end picked up his gun a shot three of the staff in the Winz office. Tully was obsessed with a novel published more than twenty years ago The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, which was influenced by the book of Eric Berne, Games People Play, published fifty years ago. The Celestine Prophecy features nine insights, with a tenth yet to be revealed. Coincidences are not accidental, they are about the real purpose of life on this planet. How this cocktail of weird prophecies, disability and homelessness unhinged the mind Tully we will never know, but somehow he must have thought that he could resolve problems in his life with his gun. There must have been people in the community who knew that Tully had serious mental problems, Ashburton is a small closely knit community. It is almost certainly a caring community, yet there are situations when people are helpless. If you have an obvious injury, accident, or medical condition people know what to do, where to turn for help, but if there are weird things going on in your head it is hard to know what to do about it. This was a tragedy for the victims and a tragedy for the perpetrator, and a tragedy for the community that could do nothing to prevent a man obsessed with his delusions form committing murder.