On October 18, 2007, Deborah Kornegay was stabbed to death in a church. Deborah and her friend were in the kitchen, preparing meals for people in need. They had brought Tommy Holiday into the church to try to help him contact a homeless shelter, but in return he stabbed the women multiple times and robbed them. Deborah, a 58-year-old mother of two, died at the hospital and her friend spent several weeks in recovery and more in physical therapy. Tommy fled the scene in Deborah's vehicle, but was arrested early the next day.

Shortly after the arrest, the chief of police said "It disturbs me, greatly, that one would go to the heart of a place where someone is actually trying to help them and do this to them. It speaks, I think, to the core of any good-living human being to know that when you're trying to do something to help somebody, that still, this could happen."