As the leader of a religious congregation, the pastor plays a vital role in leading people to God. They usually feel that they are called to serve others in their spiritual journey, and they help spread God’s teachings. However, some pastors have fallen far from grace, as they lived a much eviler life than they conveyed to their congregation. These pastors committed the ultimate sin when they murdered the ones they loved. Here are ten pastors who killed their families.
Related: 10 Murder-for-Hire Plots That Went Wrong
10 Matt Baker
In 2006, Matt Baker called the police to report that his wife, Kari Baker, had committed suicide. He claimed that he went to the video store alone around 11:15 p.m. When he returned home at midnight, he spotted Kari lying motionless on their bed. Police found her body lying on the floor near some wine coolers, sleeping pills, and a suicide letter, and Matt claimed he moved the body after trying to resuscitate his wife.
The suicide was a surprise to so many since Matt was a well-known preacher at Crossroads Baptist Church in a small Texas town outside of Waco. The death was initially ruled a suicide, but Kari’s parents became suspicious of Matt’s odd behavior. Investigators found his work computer at his second job, and they discovered pornography and searches for overdosing on sleeping pills.
They then discovered that he was having an affair with the music minister’s daughter, and she testified against him in court. She told the court that she tried to break up with Matt, but he told her, “I killed my wife for you.” Matt was found guilty by the jurors in less than eight hours.[1]
9 Arthur B. Schirmer
A Pennsylvania pastor was sentenced to life in 2013 for the death of his second wife. In 2008, a jury convicted Arthur B. Schirmer of first-degree murder after he was proven to have struck his wife in the head with a crowbar and loaded her into a car. He then drove his car into a guardrail and claimed that his wife was killed in the wreck. After being sentenced, the case of the death of his first wife was reopened in Lebanon County.
Arthur was the pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church when his first wife was found at the bottom of the basement steps of their home with an extension cord wrapped around her leg. She suffered multiple skull fractures and died the following day in the hospital. They later found that she suffered a massive heart attack during the fall.
After the case was reopened, it was found that her heart damage was from brain trauma and not from the fall. He was then convicted of her death as well and sentenced to 20 to 40 years.[2]
8 Nick Hacheney
Nick Hacheney was a youth pastor at a church in Bainbridge Island, Washington, and he was viewed as a devout man of God. In 1997, his wife Dawn died in a house fire the day after Christmas. The members of his church believed it was a tragic accident, and they rallied around Nick during this difficult time as he continued to work at the church. As part of his job, he conducted marriage counseling sessions with his parishioners. The manner in which he conducted these sessions is what ultimately led to his arrest for the death of his wife.
Hacheney started his sessions by meeting with the couple, but he would later only meet with the wife. Nick told one woman, Annette Anderson, that God wanted them to have sex as part of the counseling, and they regularly met at a hotel for their session. He started having sex with other women in the church, too, including Dawn’s mother.
Amazingly, she thought she was doing the right thing to help him get over the death of her daughter. Annette eventually told her husband, who then told high-ranking members of the church that would help start an investigation. Hacheney had admitted to one woman that he killed his wife to be with her, and her testimony would help lead to his murder conviction in 2002.[3]
7 Eugene Keahey
The pastor at Mount Zion Church of Sandbranch shot his wife and two daughters before starting a fire and killing himself. Eugene Keahey started the fire at their home that instantly killed his wife and one of his daughters, and his other daughter died one day later from her injuries. The cause of their deaths was smoke inhalation and burns, which were ruled a homicide.
Authorities discovered evidence inside the burned home that led them to be suspicious. Neighbors also told authorities that they heard gunshots during the fire. They later revealed that Eugene shot himself after killing his family. The Keahey family was going through serious financial problems, and they believed that to be the motive behind Eugene’s actions.[4]
6 Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins was the pastor at Inspirational Tabernacle Church in Jackson, Alabama. While he was preaching at revivals and trying to save the lost, he was secretly terrorizing his own family. After his wife discovered him sexually abusing his stepdaughter, he killed her and stuffed her into a freezer in 2004. Her body wasn’t found until four years later when the oldest stepdaughter came forward to police.
Some of the children testified that the couple were fighting the night the mother died, and she kicked Hopkins out of the house. He reentered the home through a window, and one child said he was holding a hammer. The oldest stepdaughter told the court that Hopkins asked her to help him dispose of the body in the freezer.
Hopkins denied killing her and stated that he found her dead and didn’t know what to do with the body, so he placed her in the freezer to keep her from decomposing. Authorities couldn’t determine how she died, but her death was ruled a homicide. Hopkins was convicted of murder, second-degree rape, second-degree sex abuse, second-degree sodomy, and incest.[5]
5 Edmund Lopes
Edmund Lopes told his congregation of the small Washington church that he was once a hired killer who killed more than 28 people but that life was far behind him. The congregation forgave him, but the truth would soon come to light. Lopes was a parole violator from Illinois, and the authorities wanted him to return immediately. They issued a warrant and arrested him, but he posted bail and only spent one night in jail.
Lopes returned to the pulpit to clear up some lies he told to his congregation. He told them that he was not a hired killer for the mafia, was not counseled by a former Nixon aide, and did not find God on death row, but instead by reading a Bible in prison. The truth about Lopes was he strangled his second wife and stabbed and choked his companion, leaving her for dead.
Lopes was convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1972, but he was paroled in 1983 on condition that he not leave the state. He was briefly placed in prison for violating his parole, but he was arrested again in 1997 on the charge of bigamy. He died in an Illinois prison at the age of 77.[6]
4 Earnie Stokes
In 2005, Earnie Stokes told authorities that he had been attacked in a home invasion and said intruders threw gasoline in his face and hit him with a brick. His wife, Syble, was found dead on their bed from a gunshot wound to the head. The couple had been married for 35 years, but authorities quickly realized that there was something weird about this story.
Earnie was a retired preacher living in Centreville, Alabama. Authorities learned that Earnie had not been faithful to his wife, and he even went as far as having an affair with a member of his church congregation. He also confessed to a friend that he and Syble had not been intimate in years. Authorities found out that he had also purchased bullets from a local store the day that she was murdered, and that was enough for them to arrest him in 2006. Two years later, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.[7]
3 Terry Greer
In 2013, eighteen-year-old Suzanna Greer hid inside a closet from her father, Terry Greer, after he shot her mother. He was able to squeeze a hand into the closet and shot her in the chest and arm before Suzanna wrestled the gun from him and ran to the neighbor’s home. When police arrived, they found the mother dead from gunshots to the head, neck, and hand. In that tme, Terry had unsuccessfully committed suicide by stabbing himself eight times with a large knife.
Greer testified that he didn’t remember the events that took place that day due to medication for cardiovascular dementia, a brain injury from the prior year, and depression. In 2013, he was charged with his wife’s murder and the attempted murder of his daughter, but a judge ordered him not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect a year later. He was initially sent to a state institution but was later released to a group home under several strict conditions, including having no contact with his daughter unless she initiated the contact.[8]
2 Fred Neulander
Fred Neulander was the founding rabbi of the Congregation M’Kor Shalom Reform Temple in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Twenty years after opening the temple, his wife, Carol Neulander, was murdered. Fred would resign as the rabbi from his congregation a year later as the murder case had become a spectacle shown on television.
In 2002, Fred was convicted of hiring two men to murder his wife, and he paid them around $30,000 for the job to be completed. Details of his personal life also came up, and during the time of his wife’s murder, he was having an affair with a radio personality. Fred’s first trial resulted in a hung jury, and the re-trial was moved to another county due to the media coverage. He was then convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Fred died on April 17, 2024, at a New Jersey prison at the age of 82.[9]
1 Michael Tabb
Michael Tabb was a pastor at a Methodist church in Troup, Texas, when he beat his wife to death in the parsonage. Marla Tabb was found lying in a pool of blood in their bedroom. The murder weapon was never found, but she received blunt-force trauma to her head and a broken jaw in several places. She was killed just six weeks after giving birth to their second son.
Tabb maintained his innocence, but authorities found blood on his shoes and in his truck bed. He accepted a plea bargain that would send him to prison for 50 years to spare his family the pain of a trial. However, the prosecutors increased the sentence after Tabb tried to commit suicide on the day he was supposed to plead guilty.[10]