"Preacher" on trial for freezer murder of wife, raping stepdaughter (Mobile, Alabama)

Additional evidence that religion is truly the last refuge of the scoundrel (though I concede that Samuel Johnson might also have been correct in identifying the last refuge as politics).

ANTHONY HOPKINS actually enlisted his stepdaughter to help move her mother's corpse from a shallow grave to a freezer (sounds like something out of an Anthony Hopkins movie!).
This "man of God"--whom the stepdaughter called Dad--also sexually abused and raped her from the age of 11. Of course, he "justified" such acts by selective and judicious use of his Bible. Of course.

http://www.wkrg.com/alabama/article/jury-selection-continues-in-freezer-murder-trial/839774/Apr-06-2010_4-04-pm/

Testimony Begins In Freezer Murder Trial

Published: Tue, April 06, 2010 - 9:29 am CST
Last Updated: Tue, April 06, 2010 - 4:04 pm CST
Short URL: http://wkrg.com/839774

Jessica Taloney
MOBILE, Alabama - 3:45 p.m.

Anthony Hopkins used a dolly to transfer his wife's body from a shallow grave in Jackson, Alabama to a freezer, according to his step-daughter, who admitted to jurors that she helped hide her mother's body.

Prosecutors called the step-daughter, who Hopkins is accused of raping and sexually abusing, as their first witness Tuesday afternoon.

Hopkins' step-daughter, 21, testified she was very young when her mother, Arletha, married Anthony Hopkins. "When he married my mom he was already a preacher," she told jurors, explaining that she was told he was a prophet. "Someone who could see the future," she said. "He was a man of God, so we just trusted everything he said."

During her testimony, Hopkins' step-daughter told jurors Hopkins, who she referred to as "dad," used the bible to convince her it was okay for a father to have sex with his daughter. Hopkins' told her Lott had sex with his daughters, according her testimony.

Hopkins' step-daughter, who told jurors the sex abuse began when she was 11 years old and she was first raped at the family's home in Jackson when she was 12, also testified that Hopkins' encouraged her to watch pornography, and then asked her to act out what she saw.

The step-daughter, who stopped attending school when she was in the fifth grade and sang in the family's gospel ensemble, said her family moved from Jackson to Mobile, then to Louisiana. Anthony and Arletha Hopkins "argued all the time," she said, and began sleeping in separate beds when the family lived in Louisiana.

Then, after the family moved back to Mobile, Arletha Hopkins caught Anthony touching her daughter in the family's bathroom, but "he convinced her not to call the cops," according to the daughter's testimony. She says Anthony told her mother he wouldn't do it again, but the sex abuse continued several times a week.

"My mom was fussing," she said, remembering the night of December 4, 2004. "That's the day my mom died." Hopkins' step-daughter described a "commotion" and testified that she heard her mom screaming for help. She began to cry as she recalled seeing her mom "on all fours. He was on her back, and he was like, get out."

Hopkins' step-daughter says after her mom was killed, Hopkins asked her for help hiding the body. She testified Hopkins' first tried to hide the body alone in Semmes, but then wanted her help "transfering" the body to his truck. Together they drove to Jackson, Alabama where they buried Arletha's body in a shallow grave in a shed behind a church the family once attended. A few days later, after someone Hopkins worked with told him a body would eventually begin to smell, Hopkins' and his step-daughter returned with a freezer. She says he used a dolly to move her mother's body from the grave to a freezer he bought to store it.

The step-daughter, who insists the rapes continued for several more years, said she was told she'd be cursed or struck down if she told on Hopkins.

Eventually, she says she became interested in a boy at church, which caused problems between her and her step father. She told jurors she ran away one day after a fight with Hopkins, but returned home the next day.

The abuse continued, according to her testimony, until she ran away a second time. The step-daughter told jurors she was went to a neighbor's home, and that's when she first told someone about the abuse she suffered.

12:38 p.m.
A jury of 8 men and 8 women, including four alternates, has been seated in the murder and rape trial of a traveling preacher accused of killing his wife and stuffing her body in a freezer.

Sid Harrell, one of Hopkins' attorneys, reminded jurors during his opening statement that each of the five charges should be considered separately. Hopkins is charged with the murder of his wife and the rape, sodomy, sex abuse and incest of his step daughter.

"Listen to the facts, apply the facts of the law, reach an impartial verdict," Harrell told jurors.


9:29 a.m.
Jury selection is expected to wrap up this morning in the murder and rape trial of a traveling preacher accused of killing his wife and stuffing her body in a freezer. Anthony Hopkins, 39, is also accused of repeatedly raping and sexually abusing his step daughter.

Hopkins' attorney, Jeff Deen, and Asst. District Attorney Ashley Rich began interviewing 50 potential jurors Monday morning. Tuesday, the interviews continued with Circuit Court Judge John Lockett interviewing jurors who indicated they had heard or read about this case in the news.

Hopkins was arrested in July 2008 after police found his wife's body in a freezer at the family's home on Rylands Street. Hopkins was preaching at a revival in Jackson, Alabama when sheriff's deputies took him into custody.

According to court documents obtained by News Five in 2008, Hopkins' daughter lead police to her mother's body. Arletha Hopkins, 36, had never been reported missing, but investigators believe she had been dead since November 2004, shortly after she gave birth to the couple's youngest child. A cause of death was never determined because the body was so badly decomposed, according to Rich.

Anthony Hopkins' daughter, who was 19 when she went to police, told investigators her father began raping her when she was 11 or 12 years old. Several months after Hopkins was arrested, his teenage daughter gave birth to a baby. During Wednesday's hearing, prosecutors told the judge that DNA from the baby confirmed Anthony Hopkins is the father.