Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 10, 1990                   TAG: 9005100664
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TEXAN ACCUSED OF ARSON/ CHURCH FIRES LINKED TO SACRIFICE TO ANCIENT GOD ARSO

The 24-year-old man also has been charged with breaking into the Botetourt County church where he was arrested and with breaking into a Rockbridge County church, Sprinkle said. The man also is wanted by Texas authorities for automobile theft.

John Randall Todd of Dallas was arrested about 10 a.m. Wednesday by Botetourt County deputies who caught him inside the New Bethel Church of the Brethren on Virginia 640, Sprinkle said. The church is 1 1/2 miles east of U.S. 11 between Troutville and Buchanan.

Todd told authorities he set the fires as a sacrifice to an ancient Egyptian god, Osiris, police said.

Capt. Ronald W. Hall of the Rockbridge Sheriff's Department said Todd gave a statement, describing the ceremony in which he set fires in the churches.

"He said he offered the sacrifice by burning the church down and his god was well pleased," Hall said.

According to police, Todd told them that while nearly 100 firefighters battled the blazes at Vesuvius Baptist Church, he went on to Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church in Steeles Creek, about four miles away.

"He said he went in to hold another ceremony there at Mount Carmel, but it didn't go well. He said he walked through the graveyard and rested. Then he came back and offered a sacrifice," Hall said.

Investigator B.R. Kelly of the Botetourt Sheriff's Department said Todd told him he had planned to set a fire in the Botetourt County church. "He had written a bunch of things down, on napkins and other papers. It was symbols and stuff," he said.

The Sheriff's Department received a call about a strange car parked near the church, the sheriff said. Deputies found a window broken out of the church and Todd inside.

Todd had driven to Virginia in a car police say was stolen from a Dallas funeral home that had fired him last Thursday. He is also wanted by Texas authorities in a fire that caused about $10,000 damage to the Troy Suggs Funeral Home, where Todd had worked three months as an assistant embalmer, Dallas police said.

Todd was held in the Botetourt County Jail, where he was questioned by Rockbridge and Augusta county authorities about church fires in Vesuvius and in nearby Steeles Tavern.

Todd had a knife but did not resist arrest, Kelly said.

The fires in both Vesuvius Baptist Church and Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church had been set, sheriff's deputies in Rockbridge and Augusta counties said. The two fires appeared to be related, investigators said.

"We've got arson. There's no doubt about that," said Lt. J.E. Mader of the Augusta County Sheriff's Department, who is investigating the Mount Carmel fire.

He said flames were set in several different places inside the 75-year-old church, which sustained some $150,000 in smoke and water damage in the afternoon fire.

Staff writer Kevin Kittredge and The Associated Press contributed information for this story.