The Confession of Pastor James Eric Crisp: Priest who overcame addiction reveals he killed a man in a 2019 fight
MONROE COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI: A 37-year-old pastor, James Eric Crisp, has admitted to killing and dumping a 48-year-old Alabama man’s body, Roger Loyd Taylor, who went missing in 2019. Investigators have charged Crisp with manslaughter and have held him in lieu of a $150,000 bond on Thursday, September 1.
According to a news release from the Monroe County sheriff, as per Yahoo!, the pastor walked into the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, August 30, and confessed to the killing of Taylor, who disappeared on March 10, 2019, and was listed as a missing person after his car was discovered abandoned. He reportedly was driving to Mississippi to visit his daughter, Alyssa, when Crisp, who was addicted to drugs, got into a deadly altercation with Taylor. Following his disappearance, the daughter told investigators that he had called her to inform her his car was stuck. "It's been bad not knowing, not knowing where he's at, if he's OK, if he's dead or alive, or whatever could've happened to him," she said to WCBI that year.
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"James Eric Crisp walked into my office, of his own free will, and confessed to having killed Mr Taylor," said Sheriff Kevin Crook said, who added that following this Crisp joined a Christian drug treatment program, God’s House of Hope, where he got sober and is now serving as a pastor and teacher for the same program, as per The Daily Beast.
Crook said, "He made the decision to risk his physical freedom in order to regain his spiritual freedom and hopefully help bring closure to this case for the sake of himself and the Taylor family. We are glad for Mr Crisp to get this off his chest so that he might be able to continue to do ministry wherever the Lord has planned for him, but this does not close the case for us." Commenting on the charges, he said, "Investigators for MCSO will look at this new evidence and determine if there should be any other charges or new suspects.”
Crisp's drug charges
Crisp had previously been arrested on drug-related charges and was sent to a drug recovery center in Mississippi. According to DailyMail, he was jailed after Monroe County Sheriff's deputies seized more than 200 grams of methamphetamine, thousands of dollars in cash, ecstasy pills, marijuana, a rifle, and a handgun, along with drug paraphernalia. Following this, he got charged with trafficking in controlled substances and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.