Mental Exam Will Delay Pastor's Murder Case

MOUNT PLEASANT (WWJ/AP) - A psychiatric exam will slow down the criminal case against a central Michigan pastor charged with killing a young woman in her trailer as part of a sexual fantasy.

A key hearing scheduled for Thursday in Isabella County was postponed. Court administrator Lance Dexter told MLive.com that John D. White will undergo a competency evaluation.

White is an ex-convict who settled outside Mount Pleasant and became pastor of a tiny church, Christ Community Fellowship. Police said he confessed to killing 24-year-old Rebekah Gay on Oct. 31 and then dumping her body in the woods as part of a sexual fantasy.

White told policehe drank four or five beers before going to Gay's mobile home and repeatedly striking her head with a mallet and strangling her with a zip tie, according to a court filing. He said he stripped her but does not remember if he carried out his fantasy of

having sex with Gay's dead body.

Her body was found in the woods.

A friend said White was engaged to be married to Gay's mother and regularly watched her 3-year-old son while she worked.

"He just basically said he was attracted to her, thought she was a very cute girl. It's a crazy, tragic situation," Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski told The Associated Press.

White was released from prison in 2007 after serving nearly 12 years for manslaughter in the death of a 26-year-old woman in Kalamazoo County, according to the state Corrections Department. He also was sentenced to probation for choking and stabbing a 17-year-old Battle Creek girl in 1981.

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