wfn.org | Preacher prays with gunman during home invasion

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 3, 1999  News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71B{316}

By United Methodist News Service*

A Dyersburg, Tenn., preacher and his wife were certain they were going to be
killed during a May 28 home invasion, but their overriding feeling now is
one of pity for the couple that held them at gunpoint.

E. Harrell Phillips, a district superintendent in the United Methodist
Church, knew that the young man wielding a sawed-off shotgun had a troubled
past. At one point, near the end of the ordeal, the preacher prayed with the
gunman.

"I was in danger and scared, but he was the one in trouble," Phillips said.
He fears the young man will die violently before he's 30 years old.

The Phillips' nightmare began at around 9 p.m., when a young woman knocked
on the door of the district parsonage. The house is in an older, established
neighborhood, with some of the priciest homes in town. Most of the neighbors
are retired doctors.

Alice Phillips answered the door. The young woman outside said her car had
broken down and that she'd been trying to fix it for an hour. She asked if
she could use the phone to call her grandmother for help. Mindful that
letting a stranger into the house can be dangerous, Alice offered to call
the young woman's grandmother for her.

Harrell walked to the kitchen to dial the number.

"I only cracked the storm door open," Alice said, "but I guess the man had
been hiding around the corner because he came bounding out and into the door
with a sawed-off shotgun."

The Phillips were caught off guard. "We spent 45 minutes on the business end
of a sawed-off shotgun," Harrell said.

"I was so proud of Alice," Harrell said. "She was as cool as a cucumber.
When he asked for our money, she gave him her purse, and when he asked for
my wallet, I told him I didn't have it. Alice said, 'Well, give it to him!'
She was afraid that I wasn't going to cooperate.

"I told him I just didn't have my wallet in my pocket, that it was in the
drawer in the bathroom, and that if he'd come with me, I'd get it for him.

"When he first came in the house, he was cursing and belligerent, but we
stayed as calm as we could, and he calmed down as we talked to him," Harrell
said.

"I was afraid they were going to kill us because they didn't have any masks
on and we'd be able to identify them," Harrell said. "Besides, he never
said, 'Do what we say and you won't get hurt.' 

The young couple was in their early to middle 20s. "They didn't look too
rough," Harrell said. "She had a nose ring, but they could have been anyone
you'd see in the aisle of any local store."

The couple said they were from New York, but the man sounded Southern. The
Phillips speculated that the two needed money for drugs.

The woman ransacked the house, opening the drawers with a pillowcase to
avoid leaving fingerprints. The thieves wanted money and jewelry, though
Alice only had costume jewelry.

Meanwhile, the man moved his captives from room to room. During that time,
the Phillips learned more about him.

"He told us his grandmother took him to church some when he was young,"
Harrell said. "I gathered that he didn't grow up with a father in the home
and that he didn't see much of his mother."

Harrell told the man that there were people who loved him, that he was on
the wrong road. "He said he'd already been shot five times. I said, 'Well,
you don't want to get in a situation where it's the last time.' He said it
was too late for him, but I told him, 'No, it's not. It's never too late.'

"You know, his background didn't give him much of a chance."

When the man moved Harrell and Alice into the bathroom, the couple feared
the worst. 

"When he moved us to the bathroom, I thought that was when we were going to
get splattered," Harrell said. 

"I asked him to let me pray with him and he said OK, and bowed his head. I
prayed for God to forgive him for every wrong thing he'd done. I prayed for
him to be the man his grandmother wanted him to be." 

Harrell peeked, and noticed that the man had bowed his head. He took that as
a positive sign. 
However, all the while, the man kept the shotgun trained on the preacher's
belly.

"I don't think praying with him saved Alice and me, but the fact that he
allowed me to pray for him did indicate to me that the seed of decency had
been planted in him," Harrell said. "I saw his willingness to accept a
prayer as positive."

The gunman ordered Harrell and Alice to stay in the bathroom for 15 minutes.
"We heard the door shut, and then he came back three times, checking to see
if we were staying in the bathroom," Harrell said. "As soon as 15 minutes
were up, I took Alice and went right to the car. We drove straight to the
police station. They came home with us and searched the house to make sure
they'd left.

"The surprising thing is that we were calm during the robbery but basket
cases on Saturday," he said. "We both kept thinking, this can't be
happening. This happens on TV or in the movies, but it can't be happening to
us." 

Now, Harrell worries about the troubled young couple.

"I didn't have a feeling of rage when it was all over, more a sense of pity.
I couldn't get it out of my mind that their lives were messed up. They're
going down a one-way street leading to destruction." 
# # #
*Information for this story was provided by Cathy Farmer, communications
director of the United Methodist Church's Memphis Annual Conference.

______________
United Methodist News Service
http://www.umc.org/umns/
newsdesk@umcom.umc.org
(615)742-5472