Preacher arrested for incest and murder.

**Unamused Cat** · July 30th, 2008, 12:38 AM

MOBILE, Ala. - A Mobile man is facing charges of murder, rape, sodomy, and incest. Police believe Anthony Hopkins murdered his wife, and kept her in the freezer putting his family through a reign of terror and sexual abuse. It happened on Rylands Street.

Police say behind the yellow tape lived a family of eight children who've endured years of abuse. Police say their father, Anthony Hopkins; most likely killed his wife, and sexually abused at least one of his kids. But thanks to one brave child, it looks like the nightmare could be over.

Police say inside the brick walls was a family in pain. Living there was a father, a so-called evangelical preacher named Anthony Hopkins. Eight children were also under his roof. Monday night, one of those children paid a visit to the Child Advocacy Center. She arrived with a startling accusation.

"We had a victim present at our offices who complained about an on-going case of sexual abuse that had taken place over many years," said Steve Giardini, with the Child Advocacy Center.

So, investigators searched the home, and what they found was even more shocking.....the frozen body of a woman. They believe she was Hopkins’ wife, Arletha. Police say they found the body in a freezer. It was wrapped in a sheet, and placed in a utility room behind the home.

"We believe it has been there for quite a while. The last known reporting or sighting of her has been three years," said Mobile Police Chief Phillip Garrett.

Police have spent the past twenty-four hours searching the home, hoping to get a glimpse into a dark world. Police say the family kept a low-profile by moving around a lot. The kids were also home-schooled.

http://www.myfoxgulfcoast.com/myfox/...Y&pageId=3.2.1

**Jaded** · July 30th, 2008, 03:11 AM

It takes a very sick individual to lug around a dead, frozen body for three years.
Unfuckingreal....

**SNOOKIE** · July 30th, 2008, 08:08 AM

kudos to that brave child. what hell these kids had gone through is sickening.

**Dakota Valkyrie** · April 6th, 2010, 07:20 AM

Once a traveling evangelist leading church revivals, Anthony Jujuan Hopkins on Monday faced a courtroom of potential jurors who would hear prosecutors attempt to prove that Hopkins killed his wife and stuffed her body into a freezer.

He killed her after she discovered him sexually abusing his stepdaughter, prosecutors said.
[...]

Hopkins' 19-year-old stepdaughter came forward in 2008 and told authorities that her mother, Arletha Hopkins, kicked her father out of the house in December 2004 because he was abusing the stepdaughter, according to court records.

The next morning, the girl told police, Anthony Hopkins asked her to help hide her mother's body.

After burying Arletha Hopkins near a church in Jackson, Ala., Anthony Hopkins later moved the body into a freezer in the utility room of their house in Mobile, prosecutors said, where it was stored until police found it in July 2008.

During a pretrial hearing Monday, Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Ashley Rich said prosecutors will show "the continued pattern of abuse and sex and mind games and control" that resulted in the stepdaughter not reporting the killing until four years later.

The Hopkins household included eight children. Prosecutors have said the two eldest were Arletha Hopkins' children from a previous marriage, while the other six were Anthony and Arletha Hopkins' children together.

Three or four of the Hopkins children are expected to testify in the trial, prosecutors said.
[...]

Rich said the stepdaughter, who is expected to testify in the case, had one abortion and one miscarriage after Hopkins forced her to have sex with him. She also gave birth in November 2008, and prosecutors say Hopkins is the father.

Defense attorney Jeff Deen asked jurors whether anyone thought preachers should be held to a higher standard of behavior.

"He's charged with murder," Deen said later. "He's not charged with having a body in a freezer.

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/tria...used_of_s.html

**AngelFire** · April 6th, 2010, 05:39 PM

What an evil bastard.

**Dakota Valkyrie** · April 9th, 2010, 10:16 PM

A jury in Mobile has found a south Alabama evangelist and former paratrooper guilty of murdering his wife and storing her body in a freezer for years.

After deliberating for less than two hours Friday, the jury also found 39-year-old Anthony Hopkins guilty of rape, sodomy, incest and sexual abuse of a child between the ages of 12 and 16.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...43mggD9EVTLEG0
Sentencing will be on May 6.

He testified earlier today:

Anthony Hopkins, 39, admits he buried his wife's body in a shallow grave, dug her back up and put her in a freezer, but he denies being the person who killed her.

Testifying in his rape and murder trial, the traveling preacher told jurors he was not home when Arletha, 36, died. Hopkins testified he walked into the family's house on Rylands Street after he got off work from his job at WalMart, and he could hear their baby crying. He says that is when he found his wife lying on the floor.

Hopkins told jurors he attempted to perform CPR, but when it didn't work he panicked. "It's not often you find your wife dead," he told jurors explaining why he didn't call 911. Hopkins said he was afraid he'd go to jail because she died in his house.

Hopkins confessed to undressing his wife, wrapping her body in a bed sheet and soliciting his stepdaughter's help to move her. During his testimony, he implied that his stepdaughter may have been the one to kill Arletha because she was emotionless when she walked in the room while he performed CPR. "She didn't cry," he told jurors.

Hopkins says he and his stepdaughter drove around Jackson, Alabama before digging a hole and burying his wife in a shed behind a church. He then testified that he dug her body back up and put her in a freezer because he "didn't want her stinking." When asked if he jumped on her body to make it fit in the freezer, Hopkins replied "I didn't jump on it. It fit snuggly."

Hopkins told jurors he thought the freezer would "preserve the evidence" until he came forward, but on cross examination he said he never found the right time to come forward.

Hopkins admitted he had sex with his stepdaughter when she was 19 years old, but denied forcing her to have sex for eight years beginning when she was eleven. He told prosecutors his stepdaughter's testimony was a lie.

http://www.wkrg.com/alabama/article/...-2010_9-00-pm/