David Keith Allen: Pastor, Family Man, Suspected Wife-Killer
Video after jump.
Claims to fame: Former pastor, New Life Church of Restoration (now called Crossroads House of Prayer), near Gatesville, Texas; murder suspect
Moral apex: Considering that he hasn’t been convicted of murder, we’d have to say it’s getting remarried less than a year after his previous wife’s charred corpse stopped smoldering. Hardly illegal, but pretty insensitive (especially to his kids), tasteless, and, well, suspicious.
What? On March 22, 2011, the pastor’s wife of about 20 years, 54-year-old Paula Allen, died in a fire (of smoke inhalation and burns, so it was not a peaceful death) in the couple’s mobile home right behind the church. When he woke to find the place ablaze, Allen says, he escaped (for some reason, she was sleeping in the bedroom while he was sleeping in the living room), then “jumped out of a living room window and ran around the mobile home to try to save his wife” (KWTX) but was “overcome by smoke and flames.” (Killeen Daily Herald)
How do you save somebody inside a burning mobile home by “running around” it? Beats us.
Well, how can you be “overcome by smoke and flames” if you’re already outside? Don’t know that either. We also don’t know how one can be “overcome by smoke and flames” and yet not require medical attention.
We also can’t figure how Paula’s body ended up at the front door if she was in a back bedroom, as Allen claims, or why he didn’t check the front (from where he supposedly escaped) if he was “running around” the trailer.
So, what really happened? We can’t say. But we can tell you he was indicted, arrested and charged with capital murder on February 1, 2012 (just 11 days after his most recent wedding). Notes KWTX: “The indictment accuses Allen of setting the fire deliberately, using a flammable accelerant.”
So, what happened between the fire and the indictment? Naturally, the church rallied around its “hysterical” pastor, holding at least one fundraiser for him — but then, according to John Nova Lomax over at the Houston Press (which is pretty much what every other published report says, only Lomax’s writing is much more eloquent; e.g.: “Before the grisly discovery of Paula’s charred remains, her husband was preaching his innocence to all who would listen, the whole hellish congregation bathed in the dancing red lights of the fire trucks and orange glare of the fire and suffused with the aroma of death and burnt plastic….”), “suspicions started to descend upon the preacher, apparently in no small part due to his involvement with 27-year-old Megan Lynn Griffith, a former singer in the church choir rumored to be pregnant with Allen’s baby.”
Is she? We have no idea.
Anyway, some folks claim to have been suspicious a lot sooner than that. Per KKXV: “Michael Stidham, former Associate Pastor at the New Life Church, says he and others from the church have been expecting Allen’s arrest. Stidham became suspicious of Allen’s involvement in the fire that very night. ‘He had his truck keys on him and his wallet on him. Yet, he was asleep on the recliner when the fire took place and he jumped out the window. But he had all his stuff on him,’ Stidham says, adding that Allen’s behavior in the following days made him ask more questions. … Stidham says Allen didn’t grieve because he was supposedly celebrating his wife’s life, but Stidham and much of the community thought his reaction wasn’t that of a truly mourning husband.”
Incidentally, Lomax adds: “Allen stepped down from the pulpit at New Life before his arrest and has started a small church called Final Victory Ministry, which holds services in the Gatesville Ramada Inn.” Just to be clear, Allen was reportedly asked to step down. Guess there was more suspicion at New Life than folks let on.
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Allen:
O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!— Deuteronomy 5:29Related posts (automatically generated):
- Bob Allen Update, May 21, 2008: Appealing conviction, says he “didn’t do it”
- Sherman Allen
- Keith Brown, “Devoutly Mormon” Father & Former Manager of Five Browns Piano Clan, Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing Daughters… After “Accident” That Looks Like Attempt to Kill Himself and His Wife (with News Video)
- Unfortunate Quote of the Week: Pastor Lonnie’s “Love in Christ” Note to Accused Wife-Beater Ramanah Yankana
- Accused Cop-Killer Jahmell W. Crockam Goes to Church — So He Can’t Possibly Be Guilty!
