In the early hours of September 5 at a senior home in Chicago, Illinois, a wheelchair bound pastor shot another retired Baptist minister, allegedly over an argument regarding the Bible.
The victim was 80-year-old Allen Smith, who had graduated from Yale Divinity School. According to a report by the Chicago Tribune, Smith was in the rear patio of the property, having his regular discussion with Ted Merchant, discussing subjects on the Bible and talking of the passages in the holy book.
It was at this time that Merchant produced a gun and shot Smith dead. Upon committing the crime. Merchant attempted to flee the site on his motorized wheelchair. However, he was arrested three blocks from the scene of murder. The shooting has been caught on camera, and the pastor has been charged with first-degree murder.
Ted Merchant reportedly ran a church at the senior home Senior Suites of Rainbow Beach. Christian Post reports that when they attempted to contact the Chicago Police Department to gather further details of the shooting, no media representative was present to offer answers to their questions.
Smith was the founder of the Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church in Hamden, Connecticut, whose page on history sums up, "CTBC held its first service of worship on July 8, 1962. On Aug. 5, 1962, the newly formed worship group received 54 persons as its first members. The new church congregation was organized under the pastoral leadership of the Rev. Allen H. Smith, a graduate of Yale Divinity School. Smith had just completed a year of service as associate minister of the St. Albans Congregational Church, Jamaica, New York."
The church did not respond to calls, but posted a note on their Facebook page, intimating that a memorial service was to be held in Smith's honor.