Dear WebSleuth Members,
I have given some background on me and my interest in this case. I would like to now give my perspective on what we know.
On a Sunday morning Pastor Carol Daniels of Christ Holy Sanctified Church was found murdered inside a church branch in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Here is a link to the churches website and history.
http://www.chschurch.org/about/history/
From what I can tell the church is a Pentacostal, vision driven, primarily black, fundamentalist church that is overly concerned with homosexuality. The truth is that I disagree with many of her churches doctrines. The issues would not be of concern to non-believers. To understand Pastor Daniels, it is best to understand who she was a preacher for and what they believed in. Not all churches believe the same doctrines. If you want to have a good understanding of why her church was chosen, it might help to read their doctrine as it may have played a role.
http://www.chschurch.org/about/what-we-believe/
You might also want to read about the history of the town.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anadarko,_Oklahoma
The town is about half white and half Native American with about 7% blacks. In 1913 a black man was lynched in the town. I am going to guess that Pastor Daniels knew about that. The town only has about 7,000 people.
For whatever reason, this church that was begun in Los Angeles ended up in Anadarko. My guess is because of the Anadarko Oil company and that may be why blacks were drawn to the area, to work for the oil company. In either case, they had enough members that they bought and or built a church there. The church then began dying off and not attracting new members in Anadarko.
I have to say two things now. Firstly, I am going to discuss things I am aware of in a very clinical manner from now on. Secondly, I would recommend the family not read this site or this thread as they may find it disturbing. The important thing for them to know is that people are considering all the possibilities.
Consider the fact that Pastor Daniels, an older woman with grown children, drove around 65 miles from Oklahoma City every Sunday to preach at a church that was dying and at best she might see the two elderly remaining members or have some random person enter. What type of random person might enter? All I am aware of is some Hispanic people who were homeless and she fed and helped out. The people in the immediate vicinity included black families and they did not come. After her death, the church was leveled and a monument was put up for her. The greater congregation did that within one year of her death, they didn't want the building and stopped servicing the congregation, they gave up on Anadarko, she never did. They could not destroy that church while Pastor Daniels was alive and still showing up for services.
What do we know about the killer. To start with, this was planned and they came prepared with chemicals to destroy the DNA evidence. We also know that they entered and left through the back door which could easily be seen by other homes, the police department and a gas station. We do not know when they entered; but, we know they left during broad daylight on a bright Sunday afternoon.
The killer planned it and believed that nobody would show up; but, he was wrong. The elderly couple did show up, what I do not know is the exact time they showed up. There was a sign in front of the church that announced the time of services. This is important because it means the killer knew what time the services would begin and therefore what time Pastor Daniels was certain to be alone and when others might arrive. How much of a time span did he give himself for the killing. He felt confident that he could do the murder and leave before anyone showed up or he would not have come with chemicals. I doubt she showed up 4 hours before the service. My guess is one hour early or less.
I will post later about what I know about the actual murder. My purpose of this post is to give some context to the scene rather than just look at people who could have done it. Evidence is the residue of an event and the biggest mistake, in my opinion, that people have made in the Zodiac killer case was focusing on why one suspect could have done it (Arthur Allen) rather than focusing on what we do know.
A pleasure to be here and I hope that my perspective is of some value to those who care about Pastor Daniels.