Pastor Attempted To Kill His Family Due To Their Eviction

Pastor Attempted To Kill His Family Due To Their Eviction

Pastor Attempted To Kill His Family Due To Their Eviction: On September 16, it was reported that a Kansas pastor who had tried to kill his wife and their five children had informed police that the family was about to be evicted from their home that day and that he thought it would have been better for them all to die than learn they would be homeless.

The family appears to have lived in their four-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom home in Shawnee since it was purchased in December 2016.

Matthew Lee Richards, a former children’s pastor at Crossroads Christian Church, admitted to police in an affidavit that he “thought that it would be better if they all died rather than for his kids to have to deal with the trauma” of being homeless. Richards, 41, attempted to kill his wife and children by stabbing them and setting the house they had lost on fire while they were inside.

“The defendant said that he had not been honest with his wife regarding their financial situation and the fact that they were supposed to be evicted that very day,” detectives noted in the affidavit. “They had not packed anything, and no one in the family knew they were being evicted.”

Civil court records cited by the Kansas City Star show that in November 2022, a foreclosure petition was filed for the home.

Richards, who did not want his family to “find out the truth, according to the affidavit, confessed to investigators that “I stabbed my family” and called himself a “monster.”

The 41-year-old former children’s pastor of Crossroads Christian Church was charged with five counts of attempted murder and one count of aggravated arson with risk of bodily harm, according to a statement from the Shawnee Kansas Police Department.