Goodyear police arrested Phoenix man this week in connection with nearly decade-old molestation.
On Wednesday, detectives apprehended Jimmy Lee Heiskell, 55, stemming from an allegation that he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old, police said. He met the boy in an online chat room in 1999, but the abuse was not reported until recently, police said.
Police charged him with three counts of child molestation and six counts of sexual conduct with a minor.
Police said Heiskell used to be a minister at West Valley Assembly of God in Goodyear.
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KINGSTON – A former youth pastor at a Kingston church, charged with taking advantange of teens he was mentoring, faces additional charges.
Brian Andrew Neiswender, 26, was charged Friday with indecent assault and corruption of minors and arraigned Friday afternoon before District Judge Paul Roberts. He was released on $25,000 unsecured bail.
The former youth pastor at Christ Community Church on West Dorrance Street had been charged on June 4 with two counts each of indecent assault and corruption of minors. Those alleged incidents took place between September 2003 and February 2006, when Neiswender was employed by the church
Attorney Jair Novajosky represented Neiswender during his June arraignment, but no longer represents him. Novajosky declined to say why or when he stopped representing the former youth pastor.
Kingston police said the previous charges were filed after two teenage females whom Neiswender was mentoring claimed he touched them inappropriately during games, guitar and piano lessons.
Neiswender’s current address is listed as Lakeland, Fla., and he is listed on the Web site of Heritage Baptist Church there as pastor of student ministries. Senior Pastor Bill Boulet said on June 5 that Neiswender had been placed on a leave of absence pending further review.
It’s unknown if Neiswender is still employed by the church. The church’s Web site says Neiswender grew up in Baltimore, Md., and met his wife while attending Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit.
Calls to Kingston police and Heritage Baptist Church officials were not returned Friday.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 11.
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LAND O’ LAKES - A Hillsborough County minister surrendered at Land O’ Lakes Jail on Tuesday evening to face a charge of lewd or lascivious battery - eight months after facing similar charges in Tampa.
The Rev. Daniel A. Gomez, 38, is accused of molesting a 12-year-old girl at her Pasco County home in summer 2005, according to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.
Gomez went to the girl’s home when her parents were not there and forced himself on her, kissing her and touching her in a sexual manner, a sheriff’s office report states. Gomez reportedly took off his pants and removed the girl’s pants, too, and attempted to have sex with her.
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(CNN) — An evangelical preacher killed his wife several years ago and stuffed her body in a freezer after she caught him abusing their daughter, according to police and court documents.
Anthony Hopkins, 37, was arrested Monday night at the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Jackson, Alabama, just after he had delivered a sermon to a congregation that included his seven other children, officials said.
He faces charges including murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and incest.
Hopkins was denied bail Thursday when he appeared before Mobile County District Judge George Hardesty. The case is set for arraignment next week, Hardesty’s clerk said.
The case began Monday, when the daughter, now 19, went to the Mobile Police Department’s Child Advocacy Center and reported that she had been sexually abused by Hopkins since she was 11 years old, according to an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant of the preacher’s home in Mobile.
The affidavit related the daughter’s story as follows:
Her mother, Arletha Hopkins, 36, caught her father abusing her in a bathroom in November 2004. Afterward, her parents argued, and her mother locked her father out of the house. The father came to the daughter’s window and asked her to let him in, and she did so.
The next morning, her father asked her to help him hide her mother’s body in the freezer in the laundry room of the home.
The girl said she moved out of the home about two weeks ago and was living with a neighbor. She told police that her mother’s body was still in the freezer.
When authorities went to the home, no one was there, as Hopkins and the other children were at the church. A body was found in the freezer, the affidavit says.
Although police think the body is that of Arletha Hopkins, an identification is not expected until early next week, Mobile Police spokesman Officer Eric Gallichant said Thursday.
Mobile Police Chief Phillip Garrett had said that an identification and autopsy results would take a few days: “obviously, the body was in a freezer.”
He said he was not sure of the body’s condition or whether it was intact, as upon seeing the body, authorities immediately sealed the chest-type freezer. The body had been covered in the unit, he said, and the entire appliance was taken to the state Department of Forensic Science.
At the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, Hopkins was preaching at a revival, pastor Beverly Jackson told CNN affiliate WKRG. His message, she said, was about forgiveness and not passing judgment — and at one point, he turned to his seven children and asked them to forgive him his past, present and future.
Police allowed Hopkins to finish his sermon before arresting him, Jackson said. She said she asked police why they were arresting him and was told, “he murdered his wife.”
She said Hopkins had told her his wife died four years ago while giving birth to their youngest son.
Attempts to reach Jackson on Thursday were unsuccessful.
Authorities moved quickly on the daughter’s accusations to make sure the children still in the household were OK, Garrett said. They were placed in the custody of child welfare authorities. The next-oldest child is a 17-year-old female, he said.
All eight were the children of Arletha Hopkins, and Anthony Hopkins fathered six of them, he said.
An investigation has not found any record of Arletha Hopkins’ existence since 2004, according to the affidavit. Asked how long police think the body had been in the freezer, Garrett said, “I’m thinking that she’s probably been there for a number of years.”
He said Anthony Hopkins did not have a regular church but apparently preached in various areas around the South.
“Part of the mystery here is that, apparently, none of these children were in school” but were being home-schooled, Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson said. “Home schooling, under this situation, removes almost any chances of us catching up with these kinds of things until there is a catastrophe.”
Pastor Jerry Porter said he used to preach with Hopkins at his church, the Williams Street Holiness Church, and knew the family.
Arletha Hopkins “was very quiet,” he told Mobile television station and CNN affiliate WPMI. “She was kind of secluded. She’d talk, but not much.”
Anthony Hopkins, he said, made statements that led him to believe all was not well at home. “He always used to tell me … ‘You’re blessed in the fact that you have a wife that supports you and what you’re trying to do for God,’ ” Porter said.
He said Arletha Hopkins disappeared shortly after the couple’s youngest child was born. As rumors swirled, Porter said, he confronted Hopkins and asked whether his wife was dead. Hopkins “wouldn’t give me an answer,” he said.
After that, Porter said, he banned him from the church but remained on good terms with him.
He said he visited the family a few years ago, and their home was clean and well-kept.
“It was the ideal family. I mean, the children were so respectful, just so easygoing,” Porter said. “Didn’t seem to be no stress at all. Never got that impression, never.”
The children, he said, “loved their dad. They were very close to him.”
Of Hopkins’ preaching ability, Porter said, “he was a bulls-eye prophet. If he told you something, you could pretty much bank on it.”
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A youth pastor and auxiliary East St. Louis police officer has been charged with sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl, court records show.
The pastor — Terrence Jenkins, 36, of Alorton — was charged last week with predatory criminal sexual abuse against a child, records show. He is being held in the St. Clair County Jail under a $250,000 bond. The crime allegedly happened in December in East St. Louis, where Jenkins served as an auxiliary police officer, according to East St. Louis Police Chief Michael Baxton.
Officials said that Jenkins was a youth pastor at the Faith United Baptist Church in O’Fallon, Ill. The church has more than 100 members; the victim and her mother are members of the church.
Police have not said why it took since December to issue charges in the case.
Jenkins was a well-known preacher who was part of the mayor’s prayer breakfast on July 24, the day after he was charged in the case.
Jenkins worked at the church for four years.
The charges came to light after the 8-year-old girl’s mother went to the East St. Louis Police Department to file a complaint in December.
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