Assassination
Tiller was shot through the eye at close range and killed on May 31, 2009, during worship services at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, where he was serving as an usher and handing out church bulletins. The gunman, after threatening to shoot two people who initially pursued him, fled then escaped in a car. Three hours after the shooting, the anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder was arrested about 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City. On June 2, 2009, Roeder was charged with first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault in connection with the shooting, subsequently convicted in January 2010 on those charges, and sentenced on April 1, 2010 to life imprisonment without parole for 50 years, the maximum sentence available in Kansas.
Tiller's killing was largely condemned by groups and individuals on both sides of the abortion issue. US President Barack Obama said he was "shocked and outraged" by the murder. David N. O'Steen, director of the National Right to Life Committee, said the group "unequivocally condemns any such acts of violence regardless of motivation." Some others who spoke publicly were more confrontational. Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry described Tiller as a mass murderer and said of other abortion providers, "We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches," and Southern Baptist minister and radio host Wiley Drake said, "I am glad that he is dead."
After the shooting, Tiller's colleague, Leroy Carhart of Nebraska, stated that Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services, would reopen after being closed for one week to mourn his death. The following week, Tiller's family announced that the clinic would be closed permanently.
In October 2010, it was reported that a federal grand jury is investigating whether Tiller's murder was connected to a broader case involving radical anti-abortion activists, according to a federal law enforcement official familiar with the case.
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