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Charles Richard Jennings Jr., 35, walked into a Sunday Mass on Father's Day 2013 in Ogden, Utah, and shot his father-in-law in the head in front of roughly 300 parishioners, according to court records and Weber County investigators.

Jennings entered St. James the Just Catholic Church on the morning of June 16, 2013, and approached the back pew where Jim Evans, 66, was sitting with his wife, Tara. Evans later told a parole hearing officer that he turned his head just before the shot was fired, so the bullet struck his cheek instead of the back of his skull. It passed through his mouth, shattering several teeth and damaging his tongue; he underwent reconstructive surgery and survived.

Parishioners dropped to the floor and hid under pews as the gunshot rang out, then called 911. 'Yes, he's shot inside the church in the head,' one caller told a dispatcher, adding that the gunman had already run from the building, according to 911 audio later released by police.

Jennings fled on foot, broke into two nearby homes and stole a truck at gunpoint, then drove north on Interstate 84 toward Idaho, Ogden police said. The truck ran out of gas about 32 miles short of the state line. Jennings called a relative to report his location and was arrested without incident that afternoon in Box Elder County.

Police called the shooting targeted rather than random and tied it to a domestic dispute between Jennings and his wife, who is Evans' daughter. Witnesses said Jennings had grown angry after she left him.

A judge found Jennings competent to stand trial that September, and he pleaded guilty and mentally ill that November to attempted murder, aggravated burglary and a firearms charge; prosecutors dropped an aggravated robbery count. At sentencing in February 2014, defense attorney Michael Bouwhuis said Jennings suffered from a psychotic disorder and heard voices that drove the attack, while a deputy Weber County attorney argued drug use, not mental illness, was to blame and urged prison over hospitalization. Judge W. Brent West agreed, telling Jennings, 'This was a horrendous act. You shook the foundation of our entire community,' and sentenced him to four years to life for the shooting plus two concurrent six-years-to-life terms for the burglaries.

At a parole hearing in March 2017, Jennings told a hearing officer he had stayed awake on methamphetamine for about a week before the shooting and believed Evans was 'hypnotizing' him. He said he no longer heard voices and had stayed out of trouble in prison. Tara Evans urged the board to keep him locked up, asking whether he had considered 'the trauma of those who had to hear the shooting, screaming and then see the blood and teeth gushing out of my husband when all they intended to do that day was worship God.' The hearing officer called it 'a horrible crime' and said the full Board of Pardons would decide Jennings' fate.