Colo. Shooter Apparently Intended to Kill More Victims

"There could have been a great loss of life yesterday, and she probably saved over a hundred lives," Boyd said. "He had enough ammunition on him to cause a lot of damage, and she rushed toward the attacker and took him down in the hallway."

The assailant had no connection to the church and "was not known here," the pastor said. "He simply showed up on our property yesterday with a gun and the intention of hurting people, and he did. . . . It was simply a random attack. A senseless, random attack."

Murray arrived at the church armed with an assault rifle, smoke grenades and about 500 rounds of ammunition, CNN reported. He initially went to the front door of the church and threw a smoke grenade in, then drove to the east entrance, shooting at the Works family in a van and at other vehicles before making his way inside the facility, the network said.

There Murray encountered the security guard, who shot him in the chest, striking the area where he was carrying his ammunition. She ordered him to drop his weapon, then shot and killed him when he tried to grab a grenade, CNN reported.

Boyd told reporters that the earlier shooting at Youth With a Mission put the church on alert. As a result, the church beefed up security, he said.

"Because we took extra precautions, we saved a lot of lives yesterday," he said. "Hundreds of lives were saved because of the plan we had in place."

The New Life Church was founded in 1984 by Ted Haggard, an evangelical preacher who was fired last year after a male prostitute accused him of paying for sex and using methamphetamines.