Prosecutor Meets with Victims of Rural Church Arsons

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In Alabama, three students were scheduled to go on trial this coming Monday. They're charged with burning nine Baptist churches across the state earlier this year, churches with both black and white congregations. The trial has been delayed. But the state attorney general has spent the week visiting some of the damaged churches and talking with the congregations. From Birmingham, NPR's Kathy Lohr reports.

KATHY LOHR reporting:

Old Union Baptist Church near Randolph, Alabama, is tucked so far into the back woods that even attorney general Troy King had a hard time finding it. When King arrived, he greeted everyone individually, almost like he was at a political event.

(Soundbite of greetings)

Mr. TROY KING (Attorney General, Alabama): Hi, I'm Troy King.

Ms. CONNIE MYOLE(ph) (Parishioner, Old Union Baptist Church): Connie Myole.

Mr. KING: Nice to see you. Sorry we're running a minute late, it's further than we thought.

(Soundbite of people talking)

LOHR: Afterward, King got down to business.

Mr. KING: We've come here tonight because we're interested in how these crimes have impacted Bibb County, have impacted congregations, have impacted families, have impacted individual citizens.

LOHR: The attorney general told the dozen or so members here that as a result of the five churches burned in Bibb County alone, the three young men, Benjamin Moseley, Matthew Cloyd, and Russell Debusk, are charged with five counts of arson and five counts of burglary each. Cloyd and Mosley are also charged in connection with fires set at four other churches in western Alabama. The men could face hundreds of years in prison if convicted, and they get the most severe sentences possible. But King says it's too early to tell how much time they'd serve. Connie Lawlee(ph) had strong feelings about this.

Ms. CONNIE LAWLEE (Parishioner, Old Union Baptist Church): People tend to think, I may get a little slap on the hand, then I can go on about my business. I think when something has been this great, they need to be an example, example to the others as to what can happen when you make the wrong decisions.

LOHR: Sitting next to Lawlee is Dean Moses(ph), who attended Old Union as a young girl.

Ms. DEAN MOSES (Former parishioner, Old Union Baptist Church): Maybe they thought these old buildings weren't worth nothing. But they don't know how hard we worked to bring this old church falling down, which had set empty for 20, 25 years. So this old building may be nothing to them, or to you, or to anybody, but to our community, it means a lot.

LOHR: This church was a union hospital during the Civil War. Moses says the only reason it didn't burn down in February is because neighbors from other churches, their buildings already blazing, called to warn them. Many were surprised when those arrested for the crimes were college students from upper middle-class families. But it's clear this evening, that no one here wants them to get a pass just because they aren't ordinary criminals. Bibb County Sheriff, Keith Hannah(ph).

Sheriff KETE HANNAH (Sheriff, Bibb County): I wanted to make sure that these men were punished, just like they would have been if they would have been three men from Bibb County. I don't want their mom and dad's social status, or their positions or whatever, or the fact that they're college students to be an issue.

LOHR: Spring Valley Baptist Church near the Mississippi border has been gutted. Construction workers are replacing all the wood doors and paneling because Pastor Glenn Harris says they just couldn't get the acrid smoke smell out of them.

Reverend GLENN HARRIS (Pastor, Spring Valley Baptist Church): This is new wood, all of this what we call paneling had to come out everywhere, you know.

LOHR: It turns out what they thought was minimal damage is now more than $110,000 worth. Reverend Harris and his congregation voted not to invite the attorney general here, partly because folks don't want to keep talking about the fire.

Rev. HARRIS: But we know that if there be a trial, we'll attend and do what is necessary. But just talking now, you know, with the attorney general not going to, you know, I don't think gonna solve anything.

LOHR: Reverend Harris and his congregation are less concerned about the length of the prison time, and more concerned about what these men do when they get out.

Rev. HARRIS: Go out in the community and speak out against these kind of things. And go to children or young people that may be, you know, on the wrong course. You know, and these type things we're interested in, you know, not so much of just warehousing them in jail for 20, 50 years and no kind of reform.

LOHR: The federal trial has been delayed until at least August. The attorneys for the accused men would like to make a deal and avoid a trial all together.

Kathy Lohr, NPR News, Birmingham, Alabama.

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