WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — An usher at the church where abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot to death testified Tuesday that he and the doctor were chatting when a man walked through the door, put a gun to Tiller's head and shot him.
Gary Hoepner was the first witness called at a preliminary hearing for Scott Roeder, a Kansas City, Mo., man charged with murdering Tiller on May 31 at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, where Tiller volunteered as an usher.
Roeder, 51, also is charged with aggravated assault for allegedly threatening Hoepner and another usher. Roeder, who was expected to enter a plea at the hearing later Tuesday, was dressed in a jacket and tie, and appeared to fidget and yawn occasionally during the testimony.
Hoepner, who testified for about 90 minutes, said he wasn't sure if the weapon used to kill Tiller was real until he saw Tiller fall to the ground. He said he followed the shooter, whom he identified as Roeder, out of the church but stopped after Roeder warned him.
"'I've got a gun and I'll shoot you,'" Hoepner recalled the gunman saying. "I believed him and I stopped."
He said he later called police to give them the license plate number on the shooter's car.
Defense attorney Steve Osburn said some of Hoepner's testimony was based on assumptions, including whether the gunman spoke directly to the other usher.
Osburn also asked Hoepner if he told police he heard the gunman say something along the line of "Lord, Forgive me."
Hoepner said he did.
The second witness to testify, church member Thornton Anderson, said he was outside the building when Hoepner started yelling for him to get the license plate number of a car that was "going about as fast as you could go along that curve."
Anderson said he "clearly observed" the license plate number. When asked by Osburn how he remembered it so well, Anderson said, "I'm a numbers guy."
More testimony was expected later Tuesday as prosecutors try to convince Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert they have enough evidence to merit a trial. Roeder would then enter a plea.
Tiller, 67, had been the target of regular protests for most of the 36 years he performed abortions at his Wichita clinic, where he practiced as one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions. He was shot in both arms by an anti-abortion activist in 1993, and the doctor had been repeatedly threatened over the years.
It is unknown how many people the prosecution might call for Tuesday's hearing, but the witness list has 220 names, mostly law enforcement officials.
