The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports…
“While accused killer Christopher Coleman has welcomed numerous jail visits from pastors and ministers, he has turned away a former co-worker from his old employer, the Joyce Meyer Ministries.
The relationship between Coleman and the worldwide television ministry, where he had been security manager, has played a significant role in the criminal case and in a wrongful death suit filed by his slain wife’s family.
Monroe County Jail records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show that in September, Coleman turned away Michael Shepard, the leadership training coordinator for the ministry — and its only official to attempt to see him.
Shepard declined to comment about it, referring all questions to Michael King, the ministry’s lawyer. King said the two were friends prior to the killings, and that Shepard tried to visit in a personal capacity.
Police have said that Coleman faked threats against himself and family that were made to appear as if they came from an enemy of the Jefferson County-based ministry.
Officials have suggested that he may have strangled his wife Sheri, 31, and sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, in their beds at home in Columbia, Ill., to be with an extramarital lover named Tara Lintz. Police testified that Meyer had a no-divorce policy, raising the question of whether Coleman killed rather than risk his job, although the policy wasn’t specifically mentioned in a ministry handbook released by attorneys.
In addition, relatives of Sheri Coleman are suing Christopher Coleman for wrongful death, and seeking to add the Meyer ministry as a defendant on claims that its leaders knew about the affair with Lintz and should have known Christopher Coleman was behind the threats.
The ministry says it did not know of the affair. And it has pointed out that Columbia police had been notified of the threats several months before the murders.
The Meyer operation had fronted $10,000 to Coleman for funeral expenses the day after the murders. He quit days after that.
Coleman claimed his family was alive when he left for a workout at a gym before dawn May 5, and dead when he returned. But charges were filed after officials said they determined the victims died earlier than that.
Jail visitors must fill out a form listing their identification and relationship to the inmate. Shepard listed his relationship to Coleman as “minister.”
Coleman traveled the world with Meyer. So did his wife, who participated in missionary trips to Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, where Shepard led a leadership training program.
Coleman admitted to Shepard a week after the murders that he had an affair with Lintz, who lives in Florida, according to a memo in Coleman’s personnel file at the ministry. It says Coleman said he had met her on trips to Hawaii and Texas.
Lintz is not listed on his jail visitor records. She has declined to comment on the case.
Coleman largely spends his jail visitation days — Sundays and Wednesdays — with family members or ministers affiliated with Grace Church Ministries in Chester, Ill., where his father is pastor.
Ken Gaub, a minister and speaker based in Yakima, Wash., visited Coleman in August. He told a reporter recently that Coleman appeared “devastated by the whole thing.”
Gaub said he came to the St. Louis area, spoke at Grace Church and then went to visit Coleman.
“I said a prayer with him,” Gaub said. “We didn’t really speak about the details of what happened.”
Gaub said Coleman told him that the relationship with Lintz “was a mistake” and that he has been framed for the killings.
“I just don’t think he did it,” Gaub said. “I don’t think he has it in his heart to do something like that.”
From http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/7B7D06BB3A04BBFB8625767F000983B0?OpenDocument
