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A former Southeast Missouri pastor has pleaded guilty to 16 charges for murdering a woman and sexually assaulting

two others at a Catholic supply store back in 2018.

That was the news out of St. Louis County, Missouri at the end of last week.

A guilty plea just one week before Thomas Bruce was to go on trial for the 2018 attack

and murder inside a Catholic supply store.

I'm joined by Christine Byers, crime reporter at 5 on your side, KSDK in St. Louis.

Christine, tell us about, first of all, the 2018 attack and murder at this Catholic supply store.

Catholic supply is a store in St. Louis where there are all things Catholics.

So if you need anything

for a baptism or a communion, a confirmation, you know, Catholic school, uniform supplies,

all kinds of things are there at Catholic supply. And so this is where the murder occurred

and the attack occurred. And basically, there were

three women in a store. Two of the women worked there, and one of them was a customer when a man

named Thomas Bruce walked in and pretended like he wanted to buy something and forgot his credit

card in his car.

And then it came back in and instead returned with a gun and ordered all three of the victims to the bathroom.

And once he was in the bathroom with them, he ordered all three of them to undress and

ordered them to perform sex acts. And when one of the women, Jamie Schmidt refused

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