John Joe Thomas, a 28 year-old Philadelphia-area Mormon priest who admitted he stoned to death Murray Joseph Seidman, a 70 year-old because the Bible says to stone homosexuals, has been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Thomas reportedly killed Seidman, whom he knew very well, and told police, “I stoned Murray with a rock in a sock,†because he had read in the Bible that gays should be stoned to death.
Read: “70 Year-Old Stoned To Death Because The Bible Says To Stone Gays“
Two weeks ago we reported the news. Now, we learn that Thomas was a Scripture-quoting priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had baptized Seidman, a mentally handicapped hospital worker.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “as ‘Brother Thomas’ became more deeply involved in the church, schizophrenia began to take hold.”
“He was really over the top. He was always trying to proselytize me, but it didn’t make sense to me,” Seidman’s brother, Lenny, said of Thomas. “There seemed to be something crazy about it.”
“In recent years, Thomas had been hospitalized at least a half-dozen times for psychiatric emergencies. He killed a cat because he thought “the devil was dwelling inside it,” and he tried to “baptize” his mother in the bathtub of their Upper Darby home, according to his longtime friend Bill Stoler.”
Seidman’s brother says Murray was not even gay, that he was likely asexual, had been born with a brain injury, and nicknamed by fellow hospital workers as “Rainman.”
Fortunately, even though Thomas was named as Seidman’s sole inheritor, all accounts have been frozen in light of his confession.
In our original story we reported Americablog’s John Aravosis as saying, “The Bible is quite literally used to kill us,†and, “Every single bigot who quotes the Bible against gays is responsible for this man’s death.”
Today, Aravosis adds, “Yes he was crazy. The very people most susceptible to bigots who condemn gays on behalf of God.”
Editorial note: This is NOT an April Fool’s joke, as one reader who commented below suggested. This is a follow-up to a story we reported on two weeks ago. It is a tragic story that has nothing funny about it.