Police: Pastor’s body was put into unnatural pose
Whoever killed a pastor inside her small Oklahoma church “staged” the body, authorities said Thursday, meaning it was moved into an unnatural position after the slaying.
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Jessica Brown declined to elaborate on how the body of 61-year-old Carol Daniels was positioned inside the Christ Holy Sanctified Church in Anadarko.
Brown also said investigators are reviewing video surveillance tapes from a nearby convenience store for clues in the brutal killing. A preliminary autopsy found she died of “multiple sharp force injuries,” and a veteran local prosecutor described the crime scene as “the most horrific” he’s ever witnessed.
6 Coral Ridge parishioners ousted
Six members of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church — including the daughter of founding pastor D. James Kennedy — have been banned from the premises and all functions of the Fort Lauderdale church.
The action, announced in a letter mailed to Coral Ridge members over the weekend, is the latest round in a brewing dispute between recently appointed Pastor W. Tullian Tchividjian, who is a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, and a group of members spearheading an effort to fire him.
Besides Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, Kennedy’s daughter, the people banned are Lorna Bryan, Kaye Carlson, Romeo DeMarco, and Jim and Jeanne Filosa. They have been ordered to stay off church property and out of church programs, and “to stop writing accusatory letters to the congregation.”
Detained Cuban pastor faces 7-year prison sentence
Pastor Omar Gude Pérez, whom supporters allege is a victim of religious persecution, is facing seven years in prison by request of a state prosecutor. Click here for full story
Trial of ex-pastor accused of murder, theft begins
Former pastor Howard “Doug” Porter exploited an elderly rancher’s dream so he could enrich himself, staging a crippling vehicle crash, then a fatal crash to cover up his wrongdoing, a prosecutor said as the high-profile murder trial began Thursday in Stanislaus County Superior Court.
Or Porter gave in to Frank Craig’s persistent entreaties, agreeing to help the senior citizen build a museum to honor Hickman’s agricultural roots and continuing to work on Craig’s dream even after the older man drowned in the Ceres Main Canal, a defense attorney countered.
As the trial got under way, Deputy District Attorney John R. Mayne showed the jury photos of a family compound Porter built in La Grange, a chart tracking $1.1 million that flowed out of Craig’s accounts and into Porter’s and diagrams of two vehicle crashes that might not have been accidents.
