UMR: pastor charged with murder in death of wife
UM News
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8/20/02
By Steve Smith
Associate Editor
http://www.reporterinteractive.org/
A United Methodist pastor in the small East Texas town of Troup was
charged with murder Aug. 14 in connection with his wife's brutal beating
death in the church parsonage, authorities said.
The Rev. Michael Tabb, 41, was released later that day from the Smith
County jail in Tyler after family members posted a $50,000 bond, court
officials said. He served a two-point charge that includes First United
Methodist Church and Walnut Grove United Methodist Church in Troup,
about 17 miles from Tyler. The churches are part of the Houston-based
Texas Annual Conference.
Accompanied by his lawyer, the twice-married pastor voluntarily turned
himself into authorities after investigators found blood on his shoes
and in the back of his pickup truck. Still wearing his wedding ring, he
was taken immediately before a district judge for a bond hearing,
sheriff's investigators said during a press conference.
He is accused of beating his wife, Marla, 35, to death Aug. 5, possibly
with a wooden table leg, in the parsonage's master bedroom about a mile
from the Troup Police Department. Authorities said her jaw and other
areas of her face were fractured in several places and that she had been
strangled.
The arrest affidavit said that the Tabbs' four-year marriage was marred
by verbal and physical altercations. Smith County Chief Deputy Johnny
Beddingfield said Ms. Tabb confided in friends that she was thinking
about leaving her husband, but authorities were unsure whether the
pastor knew of her intentions.
The Tabbs, who are from East Texas, had moved to Troup about two months
ago after the pastor finished a stint as a Navy chaplain at Camp
Lejeune, N.C.
"This is a very sad thing for both families," said Mr. Beddingfield, who
said he knows Mr. Tabb's father. "Both families are very fine people,
and they are very shaken up by this whole thing."
Mr. Tabb, however, showed no emotion during his court appearance and
people told investigators that the preacher showed no emotion during his
wife's funeral, Mr. Beddingfield said.
The arrest affidavit pieces together the crime this way:
About 5:50 p.m. Aug. 5, Mr. Tabb called the sheriff's department and
said he had found his wife's bloody and battered body in the bedroom
after he returned from running errands with the couple's two-year-old
son. Mr. Tabb told investigators that he went into the bedroom, knelt
beside his wife's body, which was lying beside the bed, touched her arm
and immediately left the room.
He told the dispatcher that the parsonage's front door was ajar. The
couple's six-week-old son was in a playpen in the living room when the
killing occurred.
Upon combing the parsonage for evidence, investigators discovered in the
carport a wooden table with two legs broken off, one of them missing. A
pathologist at the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas
said the shape of the legs is consistent with the object the killer used
to beat Ms. Tabb.
Late last week, authorities were still looking for the missing table leg.
In the initial search, investigators found traces of blood between the
soles of Mr. Tabb's shoes and throughout the laces. Authorities termed
the pattern "inconsistent" with someone walking onto a crime scene to
give aid.
The next day, a homicide detective found traces of blood in the back of
Mr. Tabb's pickup. The pattern indicated that blood was transferred from
a bloody object. As with the shoes, the pickup appeared to have been
cleaned.
Sheriff's investigators will perform DNA analysis on the blood.
The killing and murder charge have stunned the close-knit town of 1,900
people, especially the two country congregations that gathered together
the Sunday after the homicide to mourn the death. The Tyler Morning
Telegraph said church members were reluctant to talk about the killing.
Before sheriff's investigators announced the murder charge, dozens of
congregants, neighbors and friends of the Tabbs showed up at a memorial
service held to honor Ms. Tabb. Her husband attended the service, and
was greeted by handshakes and hugs from congregation members, according
to KLTV, the ABC affiliate in Tyler.
The Rev. Patti Fryman, who spoke at the service, said, "I think it will
mean a lot to the congregations that they were both gathered together
today in love and in worship and in prayer. We shared tears and held
hands and loved one another."
Conference officials have assigned the Rev. George Helton, a retired
pastor, to serve as interim pastor at the churches, said the Rev. David
McKay, a conference spokesman. The conference also is providing
counselors for children, youth and adults in the congregations.
Mr. Tabb had served churches in the Beaumont and Houston-North districts
before going into the Navy and marrying Marla. It was the pastor's
second marriage.
Having previously served churches successfully in the Texas Conference,
Mr. Tabb was considered a pastor in good standing when he returned to
Troup after his Navy stint, Mr. McKay said.
He added that Texas conference officials were unaware of any domestic
disturbances in Mr. Tabb's second marriage.
"The first indication we got was when we read about it in the
newspaper," Mr. McKay said. "He was married shortly after joining the
Navy and spent the bulk of his married life in the Navy."
Mr. McKay added that Bishop Alfred L. Norris and the conference's board
of ordained ministry will consider disciplinary action against Mr. Tabb
"at the appropriate time."
The day after the pastor was charged with killing his wife, the Morning
Telegraph reported that friends described Ms. Tabb as bubbly with
boundless energy, a woman who often played key roles in church and
community activities and lavished attention on the couple's two sons.
Her husband, however, was described as shy, often withdrawn, distant and
detached emotionally from his wife and children. Some people who knew
him said he exhibited signs of depression, the newspaper quoted friends
as saying.
"I often joked to her that I couldn't believe they were married," Joyce
Bays, a close friend of Ms. Tabb, told the newspaper. "They were very,
very different ‹ total opposites."
The Morning Telegraph reported friends saying the couple lost a child to
a miscarriage about a year ago, an event that devastated them. But once
Ms. Tabb became pregnant again, extreme morning sickness and other
ailments struck, according to the Morning Telegraph.
But during the last days of her pregnancy while still at Camp Lejeune,
Ms. Tabb confided to friends recent events about her marriage that
troubled her. The family abruptly left the Navy and two months later
landed in Troup.
Lt. Whit DeLoach, a spokesman with the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C.,
said Mr. Tabb's record had no disciplinary action.
Authorities said the two-year-old son is staying with Mr. Tabb's parents
in Tyler, while the six-week-old son is staying with a church member.
On the Telegraph Web site, Chris Rollins of the U.S. Navy wrote that he
knew the Tabbs while they were stationed in Japan. "I got to know him
very well as a co-worker, spiritual adviser and friend," Mr. Rollins
wrote. "He was such a blessing to me that I asked him to baptize me and
my three young children. After two years of working together, I hated to
see him leave Japan. The Mike and Marla that I knew were very devoted to
one another, to God and to raising a family together. I never saw Mike
angry with Marla or ever have a single disparaging word toward her. She
was extremely devoted to him as well, travelling to several foreign
countries to visit him when we were on deployment.
"... This news has been extremely upsetting to me. Now, with this arrest
and accusation, it has become even more of a mental burden. The Mike
Tabb I knew is not capable of such a thing."
etlin...@yahoo.com
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Thank you for reading this.
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