Dale Holloway refused to show up to his sentencing hearing for shooting Bishop Stanley Choate and a bride, Claire McMullen, at New England Pentecostal Ministries in Pelham, New Hampshire. (Mug shot: Pelham Police Department via AP, File; screenshot: WMUR)
The man who shot a bride and a bishop at a wedding as retaliation for his pastor stepfather’s murder refused to attend his sentencing hearing on Monday, where a New Hampshire judge put him in prison for 40 years to life, according to Manchester ABC affiliate WMUR.
Dale Holloway, 41, turned up at New England Pentecostal Ministries with a gun in October 2019, shooting the bride, Claire McMullen, in the arm, and a bishop, Stanley Choate, in the chest.
He “turned a marriage into mayhem,” prosecutor Seth Dobieski reportedly said at the sentencing on Monday.
Holloway lashed out because almost two weeks before, his stepfather, pastor Luis Garcia, 60, died at the hands of Brandon Castiglione, whose father was the groom at the bloody wedding. Castiglione was later convicted of second-degree murder.
Holloway, who represented himself in court last year, argued he was insane during the church shooting, but even he highlighted bitter feelings over his stepfather’s death. Loved ones were going to hold a celebration of Garcia’s life later on the same day when McMullen was going to marry Castiglione’s father.
“They planned to stomp on his grave,” Holloway said, construing the bishop’s and the groom’s actions.
Prosecutors said Holloway was mentally culpable for what happened and intended to kill by showing up to church with a loaded gun.
Jurors found Holloway sane, convicting him in November 2023 of attempted murder for shooting Choate, and though they acquitted him of trying to kill McMullen, they found him guilty of charges including first-degree assault.
In court on Monday, both victims said their injuries affect them to this day.
“I thank God that I’ve made a lot of progress, but I’m still not the man I was,” Choate said, according to The Associated Press. He had to learn how to walk again, and he had for a time lost function in his arms.
McMullen reportedly said she had to leave her career of more than three decades.
“The physical impact left me disabled,” she said, according to WMUR. “The bullet went through my right arm and caused nerve damage, affecting my dominant hand.”
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