When a Southern Baptist pastor told his congregation that
he was a reformed hired killer who had slain 28 people, members of
the congregation were willing to forgive him.
But some found the truth less appealing when they
learned that the minister, Ed Lopes, is a parole violator from Illinois
who killed his wife and left a female companion for dead.
The disclosures have divided the First Baptist Church
in this town of 3,900 people in southern Washington. Some members paid
the pastor's $5,000 bail. Others want him to quit.
"You're going to have an upset congregation no matter
how it turns out," said one member, Carl Nyborg Jr. "Some people are
upset, some aren't. Some people have forgiven him, some haven't. I can
forgive him."
Illinois Wants Him Back
Among those who cannot are officials of the Illinois
Corrections Department, which filed an extradition request asking that
Mr. Lopes be returned to prison for violating the terms of his parole. A
hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
The 56-year-old pastor is no longer talking to
reporters. "I'm trying to let this thing die," he said last week.
The story came to light in December when a reporter
for The Tri-City Herald, which covers Pasco, Kennewick and Richland,
checked out claims that Mr. Lopes had made to church groups in the
region since 1985.
When the Illinois authorities learned that Mr. Lopes
was in West Richland, they issued a warrant and he was arrested Dec. 12.
He spent a night in jail before posting bail and then took the pulpit to
say the arrest was a mistake.
Urged to Come Clean
But the newspaper, law-enforcement officers and other
Baptist pastors in town began to disclose the truth. Fellow pastors met
with Mr. Lopes on Christmas Eve and urged him to come clean. Five days
later, he returned to the pulpit.
"I have lived a lie," Mr. Lopes told the congregation
he has led since 1988. "You've come to hear a confession, and you will."
He said that:
*He did not slay up to 28 people as a hired killer
for the Mafia, and had lied about working for Murder Inc., the gang of
contract killers.
*He was never counseled by either Charles W. Colson,
a former Nixon aide who was convicted of conspiracy in the Watergate
cover-up, or by the evangelist Billy Graham.
*He did not find God on death row, but by reading a
Bible in a prison cell.
The truth was more banal. Mr. Lopes was convicted of
strangling his second wife, Phyllis Brown, near Wheaton, Ill., in 1970,
and of stabbing and choking his companion, Shirley Johnston, who was
left for dead in Bensenville, Ill., a month later.
Mr. Lopes told his congregation that he began lying
in prison to impress his current wife, Joan, a pen pal.
Church members complained when Mr. Lopes was arrested,
but the calls have tapered off since he admitted lying, said Andy Miller,
the Benton County prosecutor.
"I understand the church people thinking this guy has
turned his life around, but a sense of justice for the victims' families
needs to be remembered," Mr. Miller said.
Mr. Lopes was convicted of murder and attempted
murder in 1972 and was sentenced to 50 to 99 years in prison. He was
paroled in 1983 on condition that he not leave the state, but fled
within 10 days, said Nic Howell, a spokesman for the Illinois
Corrections Department.
