Posted on 01/08/2008 10:15:02 PM PST by Coleus
Two men who authorities said dabbled in devil worship have been arrested in a rash of church arsons and vandalism in rural east Alabama, including scrawling on a Sunday school classroom wall: "Teach children to worship Satan!!"
Geoffrey Parquette and James Clark, both 21, were arrested Sunday and entered not guilty pleas Monday. Friends at least since high school, the two from the Smiths community in Lee County were arrested after a stolen cross was found in Parquette's home and his grandmother alerted authorities, according to church members briefed by investigators.
"These guys called themselves professed spiritual satanists," said Russell County Sheriff Tommy Boswell. Parquette is charged with second-degree arson, third-degree burglary and criminal mischief in Russell and Lee counties. Clark is charged with second-degree arson and burglary in Lee County.
Neither had an attorney at their court appearance Monday. Both remained in custody. Bond was set at $200,000 for Parquette; no bond was set immediatey for Clark. The arrests came just two years after another string of deliberately set fires at rural Alabama churches led to a major federal-state investigation and the arrest of three Birmingham college students.
A task force of federal, state and local authorities was formed last week after three church arsons in rural east Alabama in four days beginning Jan. 1. A fire New Year's Day caused moderate damage to the Greater Peace and Goodwill AME Church in Crawford in Russell County, a fire early Thursday destroyed Greater Bethelpore Baptist Church in Smiths Station in Lee County and a fire Friday morning caused heavy damage to the sanctuary at Woodland Baptist Church in the Ladonia community near Phenix City. Smiths Station is also known as Smiths, the home town of the two arrested.
The Rev. Bobby Watford, pastor at Woodland Baptist, said he was not surprised to learn the two suspects were Satan worshippers. "You can look at their eyes and the way they have their goatees. They just look like satan," he said. The Rev. James D. Parker, pastor at Greater Peace and Goodwill AME Church, said its 40 members were ecstatic over the arrests, but not surprised that Satan worship was involved.
"You're going to have people like that. Even when you serve the lord, you're got to realize there are two sides," he said. A statement released by authorities Tuesday said Woodland Baptist Church also was vandalized, with satanic gaffiti inside the church. The statement said a graveyard beside Bethelpore Baptist Church was vandalized and that satanic graffiti was painted in a fourth church, Concord Baptist.
Jim Cavanaugh, regional director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said crosses, robes and documents were taken from the churches. He said investigators found some of these items at the homes of the suspects. Derrick Millirons, a member of the Woodland church, said authorities told them that the case was broken when a brass cross taken from a church was found by the housekeeper at the home of Parquette's grandmother, with whom he lived. Parquette told his grandmother that Clark gave it to him, but when he left and she found other items taken from churches, she called authorities, Millirons said.
He said red paint, taken from a cabinet in the children's room at Woodland Baptist, was used to paint the words: "Teach children to worship Satan!!" In February 2006, nine churches in isolated areas of central and west Alabama were set ablaze. Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee DeBusk Jr., both 19 at the time, and Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20, were arrested and eventually pleaded guilty. The three admitted setting five churches in Bibb County on fire on a night of drinking and illegal hunting on country roads, then Cloyd and Moseley torched four more chures in west Alabama in an attempt to divert investigators.
Cloyd and Moseley were sentenced to eight years in federal prison and two years in state prison, while DeBusk was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and two in state prison.
Most likely the ACLU will sue the church for preaching hate and intolerance against satanists.
See picture help determine guilt.
“The officials say they have gotten some really good fingerprints, footprints and tire prints,” said Allen Foster, the pastor of Providence Baptist. The church’s sanctuary -- located just feet from the charred remains of neighboring buildings -- suffered some vandalism but remains standing. Providence Baptist is the second church in Chilton Baptist Association to burn in recent weeks. Its sister congregation, Maple Springs Baptist Church in Clanton, burned Dec. 29. The pastor of Maple Springs, Roland Davis, said Jan. 11 that his church is still awaiting word from the state fire marshal on the fire’s cause. But after the Providence Baptist fire, the Birmingham News reported that a fire marshal spokesperson called the cause “unknown, but suspicious.” Both church fires happened after 3 a.m.
“We’re just thankful no one was hurt and that we have a place to go home to,” Foster said, speaking of the church’s relatively undamaged sanctuary. He added, “We hope if we can get the burned part cleaned up and get the water fixed up to the sanctuary we can meet in our own facilities next week.” The Providence congregation, emotional but in good spirits, met for services Jan. 13 a couple of miles down the road in a facility lent to them by Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham. The Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions provided both churches -- as well as the Phenix City congregation -- with checks from a disaster-relief fund.
For now, Maple Springs Baptist’s congregation is meeting in the old sanctuary of nearby Samaria Baptist Church. A building committee has already been chosen so the church can rebuild, Davis said. Providence Baptist plans to do the same soon, Foster said. “We’ve got lots of decisions to make, but we’re going to make them as a family,” he told the congregation Jan. 13. “We’re going to get through this thing. It’s bigger than you and I but not bigger than the God we serve. It felt like a death, didn’t it? But it wasn’t. The church is still alive.” The fires happened nearly two years after three young men made national news by burning nine Baptist churches in western Alabama.
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