One local Christian retailer experienced “a frightening morning” early Wednesday when a man shot to death a reporter and cameraman from Roanoke, Virginia, station WDBJ7. The incident occurred about 2 miles from Lighthouse Gifts & Books in Hardy, Virginia, prompting a lockdown in the area while the suspect was found.

Scott Gabrielson, owner of the Lighthouse store in Hardy, Virginia, and Church Mart Christian Resource Center in Rocky Mount, Virginia, which was farther from the scene, said it was “a frightening scenario where everybody was staying in and under lockdown.”

Gabrielson’s daughter, Teresa Gabrielson, who is manager of Lighthouse, could not get to work for a while because of police activity in the area. The store didn’t open until about 1:00 Wednesday afternoon.

“We didn’t know where he would show up,” Scott said. “Our Church Mart store, we kept the door locked and were only letting in the customers we knew, and we didn’t have many because they’re weren’t many people out.”

The suspect, Vester Lee Flanagan, also known as Bryce Williams, was a WDBJ7 employee until his firing in 2013. He shot photographer Adam Ward, 27, and reporter Alison Parker, 24, around 6:45 a.m. during a live broadcast at Bridgewater Plaza, which is on Smith Mountain Lake.

Flanagan was found late Wednesday morning on I-66 in a rental car. He had shot himself and later died at a hospital in Falls Church, Virginia.

Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, was injured in the shooting during the live broadcast. She is recovering from surgery and is in stable condition. Teresa Gabrielson had a meeting set up with Gardner for mid-morning Wednesday.

Gabrielson said the incident reminded him of the Virginia Tech shooting 10 years ago, although the school is about an hour away from both of his stores.

“This was so close to home that we basically said lock your doors and find your gun,” he said.

Shawn Kuhn, coach at SuzyQ, an author promotion and retail development firm based about 30 miles away near Liberty University, thought of Lighthouse Gifts and of the value of the Christian retailer in such a difficult time. Kuhn said that Lighthouse has the "privilege" the minister to the community but also a "great burden" in "what must be a very horrible situation to those in and around the community. So it reinforced to me just the power of the Christian retailer in a community and how people overlook that Christian retailer, and then they will be called upon as few others are, and we should be praying for them."

Gabrielson sees the tragedy as a sign of the end times.

“It’s just another sign that the Lord’s return is that much closer. As we experience the chaos that is running loose in the world, it’s easy to see it on the news as being across the ocean or in another part of the world perhaps, but I have been saying for a while that it won’t be long before they’re in our churches shooting them up on Sundays because they see that as a defenseless place (where) people who are different will be.

“I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. It’s going to turn our churches into walled cities that if you don’t know somebody, you know you’re going to be really suspicious, and it just hurts the cause of Christianity that much more, unfortunately, but these are the end days.”

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