wfn.org | Openly Gay Presbyterian Minister Stabbed to Death in His Own Home

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11-March-1999 
99101 
 
    Openly Gay Presbyterian Minister 
    Stabbed to Death in His Own Home 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Rev. Thomas E. Otte's ministry to ex-convicts and 
other troubled souls turned deadly on March 4 when he was stabbed to death 
by a man he had counseled and befriended. 
 
    Otte, a Presbyterian minister who had worked as a pastoral counselor 
for 25 years, was found dead in the living room of his condominium in 
Hartford, Conn. Police said he was found naked and had suffered numerous 
stabbing and slashing wounds to his upper body. 
 
    "It was violent, very violent," said Sgt. Norberto A. Huertas, who 
supervised the investigation for the Hartford Police Department's major 
crimes division. 
 
    News of the grisly murder left church officials and Otte's friends and 
colleagues in shock. 
 
    Stewart Pollock, stated clerk of the Southern New England Presbytery, 
which includes Hartford, said he was troubled by "questions about how it 
happened - and why would someone do that? ... Thoughts about how much we're 
going to miss his particular gifts and insights." 
 
    Felix Pagan Jr., a 27-year-old felon whom police described as a friend 
of Otte's, was charged with one count of murder after confessing to the 
crime. Pagan was arraigned on March 8. Police said the murder took place 
shortly before 3 a.m. on March 4. A large knife was recovered at the scene. 
 
    Superior Court Judge Howard Scheinnblum ordered Pagan, who has past 
convictions for robbery and larceny, held in lieu of a $1 million bond. 
 
    A memorial service organized by Otte's family was held at Center 
Congregational Church in Hartford on Sunday. 
 
    "He had quite a varied ministry in his life, and he has meant a lot to 
people around here," said Sharon Mackwell, executive director of the 
Interfaith Refugee Ministry in New Haven, Conn. Otte once worked for the 
program, recruiting people to sponsor  refugees. 
 
    Pollock said another memorial is in the offing. 
 
    "The next meeting of the presbytery is our annual meeting," he said, 
"... and there's a possibility that we may try to do something special 
around Tom in that service. I'm not sure what else I would be adding at 
this time. ... The presbytery is still trying to figure out what we want 
and need to do." 
 
    Huertas said Otte, 56, was killed after he and Pagan had a heated 
argument in the minister's home. The investigator said Pagan and Otte are 
believed to have met in April 1998, although it was not clear Monday how 
their paths crossed. 
 
    According to Pagan's older brother, Alberto Rodriguez, Otte initially 
called Pagan to offer counseling and to try to find work for him, but the 
two became friends and started getting together for late-night partying at 
Otte's condo. 
 
    A neighbor of Otte's told police that Pagan was a frequent late-night 
guest at the minister's condo in recent weeks, and that loud music often 
blared from the condo until the wee hours of the morning. 
 
    On the night of the slaying, however, the combo was silent. At 7:15 
a.m. Thursday, a neighbor found the door ajar and discovered Otte's body in 
the living room amid overturned furniture and broken glass that suggested 
there had been a violent struggle. 
 
    Detectives found an identification card in the name of Felix Pagan Jr. 
in the pocket of one of Otte's shirts and recovered a bloody 6 1/2-inch 
kitchen knife from the condo's attached garage. 
 
    By Saturday afternoon, detectives had apprehended Pagan and his 
girlfriend, Maria Lozado, 28. In a sworn statement, Lozado said she heard a 
knock on her apartment door around 3 a.m. Thursday, opened the door and saw 
Pagan, covered with blood. 
 
    While Lozado told her story in one interview room, Pagan was confessing 
to the homicide in another. 
 
    Otte's friends told police that the minister, whose wife died in 1977, 
had been living a more openly gay lifestyle in recent months. 
 
    Otte was an interested observer Feb. 26 in Hamden, Conn., at the 
ecclesiastical trial of the First Presbyterian Church of Stamford, which 
was accused of violating church law by electing an openly gay elder to its 
governing board. He was active with the Presbyterians for Gay and Lesbian 
Concerns, and with "More Light" churches, a national network of 
Presbyterian congregations that make gays welcome. 
 
    Police declined to say whether Otte and Pagan were lovers, but they 
said the murder doesn't appear to involve "gay bashing." 
 
    For several years, Otte had split his time between Hartford, where he 
worked as a self-employed pastoral counselor, and Holyoke, Mass., where he 
was stated supply pastor of First Presbyterian Church for seven years until 
he resigned in 1998. A 1972 graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, he 
had worked as a counselor and chaplain at Hartford Hospital Correctional 
Center, Hartford Hospital and Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford. In the 
mid-1980s, he was supervisor of lay ministries for the Roman Catholic 
Archdiocese of Hartford. 
 
(Information for this story was also gathered by "The Hartford Courant.") 

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