In 2016, Pastor Elder Ulysses Woodard and his wife Alisha started the True Word of Deliverance Church of God in Prichard, Alabama. In early February 2020, the couple, experiencing serious marital problems, separated. The estrangement from his wife caused Pastor Woodard, a man who had for years suffered from mental illness, considerable distress. The 44-year-old told friends that he was lost without his wife.
On the night of February 21, 2020, Alisha Woodard was the featured speaker at the Women of God Through Promise Conference at the True Cornerstone Church in Mobile, Alabama. The event was hosted by Pastor Derek Scott Gandy.
Shortly after eleven o'clock that night, at the conclusion of Alisha Woodard's sermon, her estranged husband showed up at the True Cornerstone Church and approached Pastor Gandy. "Pastor," he asked, "can I talk to my wife please?"
Soon after the Woodards met in the parking lot outside the church they began arguing. With church parishioners looking on, Elder Woodard grabbed his wife's arm and pulled her screaming to his car. From the vehicle, Pastor Woodward retrieved a handgun and shot his wife in the chest. After wounding his wife, Woodard climbed into his vehicle and drove off, leaving her bleeding on the church parking lot.
Police officers arrived at the scene at 11:23 as paramedics attended Alisha Woodard. The medical responders rushed the wounded woman to a nearby hospital where she would be treated for a non-life threatening wound.
Around midnight, police officers spotted Pastor Woodard in his car. The vehicle pursuit that followed led back to the True Cornerstone Church's parking lot. When officers approached the pastor's car he put the handgun to his head and pulled the trigger. Upon killing himself his car lurched forward and crashed into the church.
A few days after the attempted murder-suicide, Pastor Woodard's sister told a reporter that her brother suffered from mental illness and reached out to his Christian friends for help. According to her, the church, having failed to help her brother, was responsible for his death. He was, she said, a "true mighty man of god."
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