MURDERS and  KILLINGS AMONG JWs

(Investigator 222, 2022 May)

Jehovah's Witnesses killing other JWs, including their own family, is not something the sect advertises. Whether killing or murder is as common among them as the general public is unknown. The official teaching is that JWs are the best, most law-abiding, people in the world.

The Canberra Times (29 March, 1947, page 3) reported that a man's mother had starved to death in her bed: "Police said that Quinn told them he could not get medical aid for his mother, because of his interest in Jehovah's Witnesses."

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2711110
______________________________________



William Carlson  was  charged  with  first-degree murder in the 1990 shooting deaths of his parents, when he was 18, and pleaded guilty in 1992 and sentenced to 90 years.

Carlson's parents were JWs and he had feared getting in trouble because he sold some of his father's gold collection.

https://jwdivorces.bravehost.com/molestation1.html
_____________________________________



Racquel Phifer served about 10 years at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women for the second-degree murder of her baby. Her background included being  rapedat age 11, failure at high school, and undiagnosed mental illnesses.

She had sex before marriage, which would have horrified her devout JWs parents, therefore concealed the pregnancy, gave birth alone at home, and got rid of the body in the garbage.

For more information Google: "Racquel Nicole Phifer"
_____________________________________



Mark Orrin Barton (1955-1999) a JW of Stockbridge, Georgia, killed 12 people at two Atlanta trading firms, making him Atlanta's greatest mass murderer. Prior to the shooting spree he murdered his second wife and two children with hammer blows. Barton was a "day trader" and, judging from notes left with the bodies of his wife and children, was reacting to his recent financial losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Atlanta_day_trading_ firm _ shooting#Killing_spree
______________________________________



California JW mother Donna Michelle Knight was sentenced 15 years to life in prison for the second-degree murder of her newborn son by drowning him in a toilet.

The Prosecutor had argued that she had kept her pregnancy secret, then killed her newborn baby because her church regards sex outside marriage as grounds for excommunication

https://ssristories.net/archive/show3199.html?item=344
Or Google: Donna Michelle Knight
______________________________________



Larry Slack, 46, was convicted  of  the  first-degree  murder  of Laree Slack at the family's home, and found guilty of aggravated battery of Laree's younger brother. The violence started when the children were unable to find a lost credit card.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Laree_Slack
For more reports Google: "Laree Slack"
_____________________________________



Christian Longo (b. 1974), a JW in Oregon, suffered from financial problems, killed his wife and three children, and fled to Mexico but was recognized, arrested and taken back to the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Longo
Google also: "Christian Longo"
_____________________________________



JW tow-truck driver, Kevin Hensley strangled his wife of 22 years, Nancy, aged 45, in their Boston bedroom in 2002. They had two sons and two daughters, and had been separated several weeks when he beat her and choked her to death.
    
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/94560/more-demented-jw-murders-news
Or Google: "Kevin Hensely jw"
_____________________________________



Robert Bryant (1964-2002) of Oregon (USA) shot his wife, four children, ages 9 to 15, and then himself inside their home.
 
Bryant got into an argument over the Bible three years earlier, when the family lived in California, resulting in being shunned by JWs including his relatives.

https://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/bryant-robert.htm

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-familys-new-life-ends-in-bloodshed/article1022155/
_____________________________________



Carl Dennis Mackey, 41, a JW of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, fatally shot himself and his son, 12, after an argument with his wife.

Google: "Carl Dennis Mackey"
______________________________________



Martin Kracht, 24, was newly disfellowshipped when he strangled his mother, and killed his wife Vinese Bell-Kracht (21) and his infant son, at his mother's home. Martin Kracht was baptized by JWs two years earlier. His wife left him after recurring domestic abuse.

Google: "Martin Kracht" or "Martin Kracht jw"
______________________________________



From age 4 Antonie Dixon grew up on stories of demons, Armageddon, and a new world order.

At age 34, after a methamphetamine binge he sliced off the right hand of his girlfriend and the left hand of a former girlfriend with a samurai sword in the New Zealand village of Pipiroa, and then shot dead a stranger.

Dixon was a career criminal with 160 convictions since aged 15, yet was considered likeable and had two children.   Apparently he committed suicide in prison.

For multiple reports Google: "Antonie Dixon"
_____________________________________



New York man Julio Lopez, 45, accused his wife, Sharoll Medina, of straying from the faith, gunned her down, and then killed himself.

http://www.nydailynews.com/2005/11/02/jehovahs-witness-kills-wife-himself/
_____________________________________



Lester Parson, 49, was considered "nice, quiet, easygoing." He visited his girlfriend, Tanya Hughey, 38, during her shift at a petrol station, bought some petrol, doused her with it, and lit a match. He was in the jail infirmary with severe burns and died from a blood clot in his lungs. Hughey had third-degree burns over 90 percent of her body and also died.

Google: "lester parson tanya hughey"
_____________________________________



Eloy Leon Kings was a devout, respected JW man, a loving husband and father. One morning after reading his Bible he cut the throat of his 8 year old daughter, stabbed his wife repeatedly, and cut the throats of his two younger daughters (of whom one survived), and cut his own throat but also survived.

Google: "eloy leon kings jw"
______________________________________



Eugena Smith, 33, was murdered in her bedroom in June, 2007. A 5-page letter addressed to JWs headquarters stated she was leaving the church. Her estranged husband was charged for first-degree murder.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/ friends/176202/1/Murdered-woman-left-5-pg-letter-disassociating-herself-Husband-on-Trial
______________________________________



In 2008, after 20 years of marriage, Kelle Lee Jarka fractured his wife's head with a blunt object to collect $1.3 million in life insurance, covered the crime by staging a burglary, and was convicted in 2009 for first-degree murder. He was a "devout Jehovah's Witness".

https://abcnews.go.com/2020/kelle-jarka-accused-wifes-murder/story?id=9115145   
Or Google: "Kelle Lee Jarka"
_____________________________________



A 33-year-old Texas woman, described as a "devout Jehovah's Witness" but diagnosed with schizophrenia, confessed to decapitating her infant son and eating part of his body. First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg said: "You can still be prosecuted if you have some form of mental illness… The question is whether or not you know your act is wrong."

https://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/Texas-woman-accused-of-beheading-eating-infant-1305342.php
_____________________________________



Kenneth  Pickett  pleaded  guilty  to the murder of the mother of his 13 children. The Supreme Court was told Pickett is a Jehovah's Witness and extremely religious.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-02/murder-victim-andrea-picketts-family-sues-wa/5566736
__________________________________



Rodolfo Ortega, a 47-year old JW and welder, confessed to police to killing his wife after a Sunday morning argument and was charged with second-degree murder…

http://jwdivorces.bravehost.com/familicide2.html
_____________________________________



Lauren Stuart suffered from "mental scars from alleged sexual abuse as a child … by a relative", ostracism by her JW church, and depression.  She had left JWs but apparently still believed as indicated in a suicide note: "I killed my family because I know my death would stumble them. At least now they will not suffer and will be resurrected into love forever in peace."

https://www.freep.com/story/news/2018/05/18/keego-harbor-murder-suicide-lauren-stuart/620709002/
_____________________________________



A murder-suicide of two former JWs in Colorado on Christmas Day. The man earlier threw a "bomb-like device through a widow" of the Kingdom Hall causing only minor burning. Afterwards shot his wife, then himself.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/thornton-colorado-jehovah's-witness-kingdom-hall-investigation/
_____________________________________



Seven were shot dead at a JWs meeting in Hamburg including the shooter, a former JW who also shot himself.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64910415

The pair had met 15 years earlier "as members of the same Jehovah's Witness congregation" in Australia. They reconnected through Facebook but he felt betrayed when she wouldn't leave her fiance.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-04/clifford-neuman-sentenced-to-20-years-in-jail/104683718





Are some JW killers of family members, particularly of children, trying to get them into paradise and everlasting life?

JWs believe that only their sect, and only those members who remain faithful, will survive Armageddon which is always "imminent", "at hand" and "very near".

Anyone not of their faith will be killed:



According to official JWs doctrine, people who die prior to Armageddon, and therefore are not directly executed by God's angels will be resurrected (restored to bodily life) in the "paradise earth." JWs who leave the sect and survive until Armageddon will, according to their doctrine, die at Armageddon and perish forever.

Therefore, some JWs might reason that the surest way to get their children into "God's new world" is to kill them and let God wake them up after Armageddon. A bonus would be that killed children would also avoid the stresses and anxieties of life in the current "Satan-controlled" world.



Also, already quoted above, is Lauren Stuart, who killed her family and wrote: "At least now they will not suffer and will be resurrected … forever in peace."

The JWs publications have never stated that children could be "saved" by killing them. It is, however, an inference that some JWs have made from their theology about salvation.

Blood transfusions are a special case.

JWs believe that an adult's death from rejecting a needed blood transfusion, or letting a child die from not getting one, exhibits a faith that will lead to resurrection in "God's new world".

A case that went to trial occurred in Australia in 1959-1960. Alvin Jehu and wife refused an exchange transfusion for their baby which suffered from severe jaundice. Mr Jehu was interviewed after the trial:


From  these beliefs it appeared reasonable to let his baby die.