Terry Firma

The Kansas City Star describes Clara Jean Rector as “a sweet, small-town mom of three, churchgoer and author of a Christian blog complete with testimonials, prayer requests, and photos of sunsets.”

Ms. Rector’s blog is called Pray Read Live and includes earnest instructions on “How To Live As a Christian.”

The blog doesn’t offer any particular wisdom on stalking or murder, as far as I could tell, but those are the charges Rector now faces.

In reverse chronological order:

Late last month, Jerry Sousley, pastor of the Camdenton Bible Baptist Church [in Missouri], contacted the Camden County sheriff’s office, alleging that Clara Rector had been stalking him and sending him messages “regarding inappropriate matters of a sexual nature,” according to court documents. When Sousley rebuffed her advancements, the messages escalated, some even showing up on the windshield of his car, the court documents allege. Sousley also found a notebook at the church in which Rector had allegedly written an account of a fictitious sexual relationship between her and the preacher.

During the stalking investigation, Rector unexpectedly blurted out that she’d butchered a man named Tommy Hope nine years earlier. She was a “person of interest” in the murder case after it became clear that she and Hope had been lovers and that he’d supplied her with drugs. But the detectives couldn’t make their suspicions stick, and the Hope case went cold. Until now.

During recent questioning, Rector said she left her house in the middle of the night of April 24, 2004, to go to Hope’s residence to buy drugs. When he told her he didn’t have any, she grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen, “jumped on his back and cut his throat,” documents say. “I was high and not thinking,” she told detectives.

On the other hand, she could really wash the fuck out of dirty windows.

“She’s a great mother, a hard worker, and she’s always cleaned my windows and taken care of my garden,” said Gerry Rector, the longtime principal at Camdenton Bible Baptist School.

So there’s that.