Imagine yourself in a room that is meant to be a “safe place”, a place where you can be yourself and have your own beliefs. You’re listening to a youth pastor encouraging you to be a good person to treat others with love. You feel safe; you feel like you can truly be yourself around these people.
Especially that one pastor; the one you always felt like you could trust. Someone to come to about just anything. That someone you felt safe with went home one night and attempted to brutally murder his wife & children in a fire resulting in long-lasting injuries and trauma.
This youth pastor was 41-year-old Matthew Lee Richard, located in Shawnee. To some, he was an inspiring pastor, and to others, he was a loving father who had a loving heart for his family. He was the ideal guy to some -he had a job, a wife, and lively children.
On most days you could find him having inspirational talks with children at his local Crossroads Christian Church, encouraging them to be the best version of themselves. And on most nights he would return home to his wife & children for dinner.
But this changed for the worse on Saturday morning around 3:00 A.M. when Shawnee’s police and fire departments responded to a house fire and disturbance. Most fires are caused by accidents so this seemed like any other fire. The firefighters most likely assumed that whoever caused this wouldn’t do this with malicious intent and that they wouldn’t do this to cause harm or destruction. Right?
As soon as they arrived they quickly extinguished the fire coming from the basement when they noticed the six victims, two being over eighteen, sustaining several burns leaving them in the hospital for several weeks and even laceration injuries.
For background information, a laceration is when tissue under the skin is harmed. This can not be caused by a fire, it can be caused by a knife or a sharp piece of glass which further extends the case from being just an accident.
The investigators noticed this and deemed Richards as the main suspect due to the fact he didn’t sustain any injuries himself.
When this case was going around social media, his church; Crossroads Christian Church, released a statement on Facebook saying, “We are aware of the situation involving our Children’s Pastor, Matt Richards. We are gathering more information and will have a full statement at a later time. Please be respectful of this situation, as it is still an ongoing investigation. And please join us in praying for the Richards family during this time. Due to the sensitive nature of this situation, we will not be livestreaming Sunday’s Services.”
Richard is now charged with 5 counts of attempted murder and one count of aggravated arson with the risk of bodily harm. He now has a five-million-dollar bond.
