Michigan Pastor Admits Killing Fiancee's Daughter In Sex Fantasy

By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 2, 2012 9:40PM

A Michigan pastor allegedly admitted to strangling his fiancée’s daughter as part of a sex fantasy, then asked members of his church to pray for her before police discovered her naked body.

John D. White, a 55-year-old ex-convict, was ordered held without bond Friday, charged with the first-degree murder of 24-year-old Rebekah Gay. White was engaged to Gay’s mother, Donna Houghton, and frequently babysat her 3-year-old son. Houghton was also instrumental in getting White hired to lead the 14-member Christ Community Fellowship church in rural Isabella County, Mich.

"I protested his innocence until I had the absolute news that he confessed. Then he had no leg to stand on," she told AP.

According to Isabella County Sheriff’s officials, White admitted to striking Gay’s head with a mallet, strangling her with a zip tie, stripping her of her clothes and dumping her body in a wooded area a half-mile away from Gay’s mobile home early Wednesday. Then he dressed Gay’s son for Halloween and handed him over to his father in a parking lot. When Gay didn’t meet her son’s father to reclaim the boy, authorities were quick to focus on White.

White served 12 years for or manslaughter in the death of a 26-year-old woman in Kalamazoo County and was released from prison in 2007. He also was sentenced to probation for choking and stabbing a 17-year-old Battle Creek girl in 1981.