The Unusual Suspects

By Jyoti Thottam

When Alabama churches were bombed or burned in the South in the 1960s, the reason was never a mystery. The racist violence of those years was meant to intimidate the African Americans who met in the churches, and you didn't need a guilty perpetrator, or even a suspect, to know that. Forty years later, after a new wave of church fires in Alabama, a twist ending to the story has residents stunned and confused.

Federal agents last week arrested three college students from the prosperous Birmingham suburbs--sons of a doctor, a constable and a plant manager--accusing them of setting ablaze nine churches, home to both black and white congregations, in the rural counties around Birmingham in February. "It's hard to believe it was these kinds of kids," says Greene County sheriff Johnny Isaac. Most expected a troubled loner to emerge as the suspect. A volunteer firefighter pleaded guilty to an earlier series of burnings in 1996; a self-professed Satanist is in prison for similar crimes in 1999.

Instead, the three alleged arsonists, who have all been charged with federal conspiracy to burn churches, were popular college kids with big dreams and real talents. Matthew Cloyd, 20, was a premed student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, to which he transferred last year. An avid deer hunter and a high school math-honor-society student, Cloyd remained close to two friends he met during his freshman and sophomore years at Birmingham-Southern College, Russell DeBusk and Benjamin Moseley. The 19-year-old theater majors were a tight pair at the small liberal-arts school, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Known as extroverted cutups with a bit of a wild side, they were described in the campus newspaper as budding actors "on the road to stardom." Moseley, a high school homecoming king and senior-class president, two years ago spent a week helping rebuild a church in Louisiana on a mission with his church, Huffman United Methodist. Says church member Beth O'Donnell, a mother of four who was often host to Moseley in her home: "He is a kind and gentle soul, a bit impulsive, but nobody thought it would turn such a way."

The three friends boasted about their partying adventures on the popular social-networking site facebook.com "He said he was interested in Satanism," says Jeremy Burgess, 19, DeBusk's dormitory roommate. But one "demon hunting" trip amounted to little more than an excuse to drink in the woods. According to court documents, Cloyd, DeBusk and Moseley set the first five fires as a joke after a night of drinking and shooting at deer, then torched four more churches 100 miles away to throw police off their trail. A lawyer for Cloyd described him as "remorseful" but would not comment on his guilt or innocence.

James Cavanaugh, regional Special Agent in Charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, says the crime bears the marks of "thrill and excitement" arson rather than a prank. The fires, for example, were carefully set from inside the churches, not outside, as in an impulsive act of vandalism. At Old Union Baptist Church in Bibb County, a large artificial-flower arrangement had been moved to the piano top, under an American flag, presumably to serve as tinder.

It was old-fashioned police work that led to the arrests. Investigators made casts of identical tire tracks at six churches, matching the pattern and size to a database of manufacturers. That narrowed the field to Toyota 4Runners and similar SUVs, and agents then methodically interviewed everyone in the nearby counties who owned such a vehicle. By the second week of March, they had questioned Cloyd's mother. Investigators say Cloyd cracked first, to his parents, who informed authorities; Moseley filled in the details for police. The three boys face five-to-20-year sentences per count if convicted.

The absence of any apparent racial motive for the crimes is a small comfort in Birmingham. But the demise of the churches, some more than 100 years old, is still painful. "I began to sense loss for our older people," says Jim Parker, pastor at Ashby Baptist in Bibb County. "They were baptized and married here, and their people are buried here," he says. "But when the children started really crying, I realized it was all they had ever known too." Some things have changed in Alabama, but grief remains the same.

With reporting by Reported by Verna Gates, Frank Sikora/Birmingham, Greg Fulton/Atlanta