Another fundamentalist pastor has been arrested for sex crimes, this time in West Virgina. “Dr.” Mathew D. Jarrell is the pastor of the Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas.
According to The Charleston Gazette:
[T]he woman was approached by Jarrell, whom she did not know. She needed a ride home [from a Charleston bar], and he said he would take her. Instead, he drove to an area off Martins Branch Road, where he held the woman’s face down on the seat of his truck, forcibly pulled her pants down and sodomized her, according to the complaint.
After the woman escaped, she contacted police and described Jarrell and his truck. When a sheriff’s deputy detained Jarrell, he originally denied having sex with the woman, but later admitted to it, according to the complaint.
“According to family members, Jarrell was supposed to be in Pennsylvania,” Lt. Sean Crosier of the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
The church website is allegedly “down for maintenance” but the cached site pages report the following facts about Jarrell:
Pastor Jarrell was born in Louisa, Kentucky. He was saved while serving in the Army with the 160th Special Operations Task Force stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. While attending a church service, the preaching of Dr. Jack Hyles brought Holy Ghost conviction and Pastor Jarrell repented of his sins and received Jesus Christ as he heard the sermon entitled, “Judasitis.”
Pastor Jarrell joined Temple Baptist Church in Clarksburg, Tennessee, where God called him to preach. Pastor Jarrell attended Austin Peay State University, Hyles-Anderson College, Atlantic Baptist Bible College, and Calvary Baptist Seminary. In 2004, he accepted the pastorate at Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas.
Jarrell has a wife and 4 children.
Update: Sources are now reporting that Matthew Jarrell has committed suicide while being detained facing these charges. A sad end to a sad story.
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