MN - Beau Shroyer, Wife of Detroit Lakes missionary killed in Angola arrested in connection to his death

  • #41
Are you thinking about this one? In this case, the family had just emigrated from South Africa to New Zealand, and NZ was where she killed the children. I don't think their relocation was in any way religiously motivated.


In this case, both were doctors, I believe. But in New Zealand, she was a home mom.
 
  • #42
Given the delay in announcing the wife as the suspect, I wanted to see what they were saying right after his death. One of the articles referenced what the family was doing leading up to the death.

I can see some real stressors (and possible set-up) with Jackie:
In a presentation on their missionary work in Lubango to Country Faith Church in June, Jackie Shroyer revealed that she and her family moved to Angola about three years ago. It was their first time as a family living overseas and their first time working as missionaries.

She explained that in their first year in the city, they focused on learning Portuguese and the culture and constantly battled malaria and security issues.

“We battled many other sicknesses. We had a lot of security issues. Mistrust with guards. We went through so many guards and we had several break-ins in our home during the night while we were at home sleeping,” Jackie Shroyer said.


“On top of everything else, trying to figure out how to live in this culture, we had so many changes, so many difficult experiences that caused a lot of fear and trauma,” she added.
 
  • #43
however...
“It's really encouraging that now that we're here, we completed that first term. We went to our organization headquarters and did our debriefing and all seven of us can say with certainty we cannot wait to go back and continue working,” she said. “There's not one doubt in any seven of our minds that this is where we're supposed to be and just so excited to get back and continue our work.”

Beau Shroyer would later explain during the presentation that the government of Angola had given the ministry a parcel of land next to an orange farm that was constantly under attack from criminals which affected the property they were trying to develop.

At the top of a list of needs for the property he presented to Country Faith Church, was the need to build a perimeter wall and hire more security.
 
  • #44
Given the delay in announcing the wife as the suspect, I wanted to see what they were saying right after his death. One of the articles referenced what the family was doing leading up to the death.

I can see some real stressors (and possible set-up) with Jackie:
In a presentation on their missionary work in Lubango to Country Faith Church in June, Jackie Shroyer revealed that she and her family moved to Angola about three years ago. It was their first time as a family living overseas and their first time working as missionaries.

She explained that in their first year in the city, they focused on learning Portuguese and the culture and constantly battled malaria and security issues.

“We battled many other sicknesses. We had a lot of security issues. Mistrust with guards. We went through so many guards and we had several break-ins in our home during the night while we were at home sleeping,” Jackie Shroyer said.


“On top of everything else, trying to figure out how to live in this culture, we had so many changes, so many difficult experiences that caused a lot of fear and trauma,” she added.
This makes it even harder to believe that she would ever have killed him, her husband, possibly the only person she fully trusted in this whole foreign (to her) land fraught with danger and risks and mistrust.
 
  • #45
Also just highlighting these words. brutal. criminal. Most the articles out there seem to indicate she is arrested
"in connection to" the death. There is more clearly known at this point.

Officials allege that Jackie Shroyer, 44, killed her husband Beau Shroyer, 44, in a "violent, criminal attack," Troy Easton, pastor of Detroit-based Lakes Area Vineyard Church said in a statement.

 
  • #46
This makes it even harder to believe that she would ever have killed him, her husband, possibly the only person she fully trusted in this whole foreign (to her) land fraught with danger and risks and mistrust.
Brainstorming theories, NOT saying any of these are true, but only brainstorming:

* She purposely planned to kill her husband
* She killed her husband in a heat of passion (argument gone violent, for example)
* She killed her husband in self-defense
* She killed her husband in a mental crisis, delusion
* One of the kids killed him and she is taking the fall
* It was suicide but the investigators don't see it that way
* He suffered an accident but the investigator don't see it that way.
* She was framed by a local (or other missionary?)

With next to no info, ideas are all over the place.

jmo
 
  • #47
I found the SM posts very saccharine, glossy. They reminded me of Jennifer Hart and her wife's post. She was the woman who drove her family off a cliff. She posted about her lovely family, and photographed them being lovely. In reality, they were starving and none of it was true.
I also read between the lines on the articles.
Being helpless at a German airport—and mentioning they had no way to communicate with Germans—seems like a step in the direction of "this family is going to find it very difficult in a foreign environment". Unresourceful. FWIW most Germans speak English. It's a required subject in school, and if your plane gets delayed, you flag down an airline employee or go to the ticket counter to get it handled. No need for German. Par for the course.
IMO DV or an affair. Garden variety except for the Angola angle.
It could have been a gun, a knife, or, I'm thinking, a machete. They are more common elsewhere than in the US.

Thank you, this makes sense and can definitely see it this way. I also thought of the Harts and how different reality can be from SM. The DL-Online article which was one I hadn’t read until last night - that one has way more detail and definitely has a very negative slant in how she/they described their experiences. Also agree with you on the ridiculous claims about no one in Germany, at the airport no less, being able to speak English except for one lone unicorn of a woman.

So perhaps she decided enough is enough and that her only option to get back to the US was to get rid of her missionary husband. I also smell a self-defense defense coming. Not ruling domestic violence out at all.

Has anyone been able to find Angolan media sources that might have more details?
 
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  • #48
Are you thinking about this one? In this case, the family had just emigrated from South Africa to New Zealand, and NZ was where she killed the children. I don't think their relocation was in any way religiously motivated.


Thank you! Yes that’s the one I was thinking of, and I did have it the wrong way around. I wasn’t thinking of the religious aspect, more of the emigration and stress of being where you don’t want to be as a trigger.
 
  • #49
My experience in developing countries is that expats and well-to-do always have guards. One country I was in, the guard was so afraid of the dark, that he hired a guard to guard him. LOL.
Missionaries in Angola very likely have servants to wash, clean, cook, do childcare.

Omnipresent guards would not surprise me. As for servants, their very likely presence would match the secular NGO employees that I had contact with.

I was vaguely bothered after being told by co workers that a number of the long term NGO employees had servants- and more than just a driver on call and a visiting housekeeper. Like religious missionaries, the NGOs were registered charities. Though hiring servants is not unethical, and helps the local economy, it just seemed, well....unbecoming.

Ditto for the retired teacher and his RN wife. They became expatriates after leaving their NGO and aqquired a very plus sized compound and a local lifestyle they could never afford in the Boston area. Again, nothing unethical- but for some reason, it just vaguelly bothered me.
 
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  • #50
It appears that the only information coming out is by the pastor of their church,Lakes Area Vineyard Church.

Which means to me that we will only hear what he wants us to hear.


Jmo
 
  • #51
Thank you, this makes sense and can definitely see it this way. I also thought of the Harts and how different reality can be from SM. The DL-Online article which was one I hadn’t read until last night - that one has way more detail and definitely has a very negative slant in how she/they described their experiences. Also agree with you on the ridiculous claims about no one in Germany, at the airport no less, being able to speak English except for one lone unicorn of a woman.

So perhaps she decided enough is enough and that her only option to get back to the US was to get rid of her missionary husband. I also smell a self-defense defense coming. Not ruling domestic violence out at all.

Has anyone been able to find Angolan media sources that might have more details?
FWIW, it is a common trope in Christian essays, sermons, etc. to hear a calling and answer it without necessarily preparing much, to suffer hardship, to receive aid from a stranger, and to persevere to a more energized attitude once again.

jmo
 
  • #52
Also just highlighting these words. brutal. criminal. Most the articles out there seem to indicate she is arrested
"in connection to" the death. There is more clearly known at this point.

Officials allege that Jackie Shroyer, 44, killed her husband Beau Shroyer, 44, in a "violent, criminal attack," Troy Easton, pastor of Detroit-based Lakes Area Vineyard Church said in a statement.

So many people on this thread are finding it difficult to believe that Jackie killed her husband.
But the pastor at their American church doesn't seem to have trouble believing it. Nor does the missionary organization that they were associated with.

"SIM is grateful to Angolan law enforcement for their diligence in investigating this matter," the organization said.
 
  • #53
So many people on this thread are finding it difficult to believe that Jackie killed her husband.
But the pastor at their American church doesn't seem to have trouble believing it. Nor does the missionary organization that they were associated with.

I agree. I don't know anything about the belief system of their church, but I've found it strange that there doesn't seem to be any kind of public statement (at least in the articles I've read) re: praying for her or something to that effect (even if they do think she killed her husband).

On a separate note with the talk of the embassy keeping tabs on things, the embassy is currently in a changeover of Ambassadors as the previous one retired & the current one is undergoing Congressional hearings/approvals.
 
  • #54
I was trying to find local Angolan news sources. Various links seem to be no longer in use or are unsafe/not secure links.

Fyi, here is a wikipedia list with various newspapers & journals:

And a newspaper that I can load but a search on "Shroyer" did not return any articles or information:

Mostly posting if others also want to search or try to find some more local coverage, if it exists.
 
  • #55
Given the delay in announcing the wife as the suspect, I wanted to see what they were saying right after his death. One of the articles referenced what the family was doing leading up to the death.

I can see some real stressors (and possible set-up) with Jackie:
In a presentation on their missionary work in Lubango to Country Faith Church in June, Jackie Shroyer revealed that she and her family moved to Angola about three years ago. It was their first time as a family living overseas and their first time working as missionaries.

She explained that in their first year in the city, they focused on learning Portuguese and the culture and constantly battled malaria and security issues.

“We battled many other sicknesses. We had a lot of security issues. Mistrust with guards. We went through so many guards and we had several break-ins in our home during the night while we were at home sleeping,” Jackie Shroyer said.


“On top of everything else, trying to figure out how to live in this culture, we had so many changes, so many difficult experiences that caused a lot of fear and trauma,” she added.
Yes. This is one of the articles I was referencing when I commented they have nothing positive to say. And the focus is on fear and violence. I find that they (and these media outlets) use inflammatory and outdated tropes.

It is normal to become ill (did they take their malaria meds and get vaccinated?) when going to a developing country. It’s normal to have to learn a foreign language if you are living in a foreign country (but you should be able to get fluent in much less than a year, kids in 3 months). I’m unclear what “learning to live in this culture” would entail, but it has a whiff of “they don’t know how to do stuff the right way.” It’s normal to have issues with paid employees; sometimes they don’t mesh with the family or they don’t get paid enough.

The family was evidently living in a missionary compound when the murder occurred.
 
  • #56
  • #57
So many people on this thread are finding it difficult to believe that Jackie killed her husband.
But the pastor at their American church doesn't seem to have trouble believing it. Nor does the missionary organization that they were associated with.
So glad you said this. There’s no protestation from anywhere that the arrest has been the result of corruption, false detention, misplaced, “got the wrong person”, or “not possible”.
 
  • #58
A crazy thought I had (though I don’t believe it myself): mother is covering for a child.
 
  • #59
Well after looking at the pictures and reading multiple stories, I think MOO an affair partner is missing from this story.
 
  • #60

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