Murder Charge Divides
Church
By Julia Oliver
Staff Writer
Fayetteville Online
SANFORD -- Two
weeks after Pastor Melvin Bynum was charged with killing his wife, his
congregation is still reeling. Fighting and confusion has mixed with worship at
Cry Out Loud Ministries, members said. Some said they are too sad to participate
fully in services.
“I went back, but I’m kind of off to myself,” said Dalphine Bynum, who is
married to Melvin’s brother. “There’s a lot that I don’t understand. And I want
to keep my distance.”
Marnita Bynum was found strangled in the trunk of her car Aug. 2. She was 40.
Less than three weeks later, authorities charged her husband with the crime.
Some congregation members were surprised to hear the pastor had filed for
divorce in June.
Marnita was always smiling, they said, and the couple had just returned from
a family vacation to Florida the weekend she was killed.
“I said, ‘God, she’s going through all that and she just didn’t tell
nobody,’” said Claretha Williams. She has attended the small church on Woodland
Avenue for 11 years and said Marnita ate at her home three or four times a week.
Williams and several others said they plan to attend the probable cause
hearing today in Rockingham. For many, it’s to put their disbelief to rest.
“I have to see their facts,” Dalphine Bynum said. “They have to prove it to
me either way.”
Moore County Sheriff Lane Carter said he expects the hearing to be continued.
The investigation that led to Melvin Bynum’s arrest spanned three
jurisdictions. The couple lived in Moore County, the church is in Sanford, and
Marnita Bynum’s body was found along a Richmond County road. Authorities have
disclosed little about the crime. After Melvin Bynum’s arrest, Richmond County
Sheriff Dale Furr said that members of the congregation were reluctant to
cooperate with investigators, either out of loyalty to their pastor or out of
fear.
No fear
Church members said no one was afraid of Melvin Bynum. But the
day after Marnita’s body was found, they said, he called a meeting.
“He just basically came in and said that he didn’t want anybody talking to
the media,” said Edward Moses, a member for six years. Melvin Bynum told the
group to let assistant pastor Warren Anderson speak for the church, and his
lawyer would speak for him.
Williams said Melvin’s request raised eyebrows.
“I was wondering why he needed a lawyer,” she said.
Jacquelyn Carter, Marnita’s mother, said she will not speak publicly about
her daughter’s relationship with Melvin. She worries that her grandchildren,
Brock Lamar, who is 17, and Marquail Lamont, who is 20, might lose a father,
too. She said only that Melvin started the church more than a decade ago with a
good heart.
“In a time of need he was there. In a time of help he was there. And then
something went bad,” she said, but would not elaborate. “The snowball, the
little sand, became from a little piece of sand coming down the hill, to the
death of my daughter.”
She said she would like people to know how much her daughter loved her family
and her church.
“My daughter was beautiful. She lived life beautifully,” Carter said. “She
wasn’t supposed to go like this.”
Bubbly nickname
Congregation members said Marnita, whose bubbly
personality had earned her the nickname “Champagne,” was private about her
problems. They described her as an energetic force who ran the women’s auxiliary
and occasionally led a “women’s night out” trip to a restaurant or the movies.
She had a good aesthetic sense and loved crafts, such as making T-shirts with
iron-on photographs, her friends said. She had planned to start a Women’s Crisis
Center at the church, a project her mother plans to pick up.
“She said there was a lot of women being battered and they didn’t have
nowhere to go,” Williams said.
The pastor and his wife presided over different spheres in the church,
members said. Both leaders had “armor-bearers” -- companions who would accompany
them places or carry things for them. Marnita’s armor-bearers would often show
her around Sanford, because she was from Chicago and didn’t know the area well,
Williams said. Melvin had one armor-bearer, who would escort him to the office
or carry his books, she said.
“It’s like having a best friend that you can depend on and count on,” said
Edward Moses, who had once trained to be Melvin’s armor-bearer. His girlfriend,
Nicole Ortega, once filled that role for Marnita.
Melvin led services, and Marnita spoke after church every third Sunday. She
led with a light, open-minded touch, Williams said, while he took stronger
stances and was more exacting.
“She gave everybody a chance to move on different things, whereas if he
thought somebody wasn’t qualified or capable, he wouldn’t put them in that
position,” she said. She was the teacher; he was the preacher.
Melvin Bynum would preach against drugs, against “young people fornicating,”
and about a man’s place in the home, Williams said. He would say that “God made
man the head and woman was his helpmate,” she said, “and a man’s supposed to
take care of his family.”
While the Bynums’ charisma brought people together for 12 years, Williams
said the events of recent weeks have divided them. “A lot of people’s upset and
biting people’s head off for what they said,” she said.
Ousted from church
Carter, Marnita’s mother, said some members of the
church have supported her. But others will not allow her to enter the building
or let her have the flowers from the funeral.
“They will not allow me to get my baby’s plants,” she said.
Kim Lytes, a former congregation member, said she was told to leave the
church last Sunday.
“I think it’s because I’ve been supporting Miss Jackie (Carter),” she said.
Williams said she is still working through her opinions. For many, two people
that the church loved are now gone. And one they trusted -- and who inspired
them -- has been accused of a horrible crime. Williams doesn’t know what to
think about her pastor.
“I really hadn’t made up my mind,” she said. “Because I just can’t believe
the way he taught us and preached to us that he would do something like this.”
