Jury selection for the trial of a Cottage Grove man accused of murdering his wife began today.
A grand jury indicted Stephen Allwine, 44, in March of first-degree premeditated murder, a charge that carries a mandatory life sentence if convicted.
Allwine was initially charged with second-degree intentional murder in November 2017 for the death of his wife, Amy, in their south Cottage Grove home.
Prosecutors allege Allwine killed her and attempted to stage her death as a suicide after a murder-by-hire plot failed.
Amy Allwine was found in their home with a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
But investigators allege Stephen Allwine made contacts through the Dark Web, a hidden and mostly anonymous portion of the internet associated with criminal activity, as part of a months-long plot to kill his wife.
Allwine's alleged Dark Web activity included an inquiry into purchasing a drug that was found in unusually high concentrations in his wife's body after her death. See complete Story here: Woodbury Bulletin
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Ever notice how random chance always picks you for jury duty, but not to win the lottery?
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't he just divorce or separate from his wife. I wonder what the story is.
ReplyDeleteArmstrongism attracts people who have mental illnesses or are unstable, and causes mental illness in its members who were actually sane and stable when they first came in!
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To divorce would mean the estate would be split but he rather craved to have it all; such is the greed among church leaders: they impersonate themselves as Levites using God’s words in Malachi 3 to threaten all those who don’t pay up. Greed and Crime! Perhaps Stephen Allwine is just a microcosm of an eventually heavenly judgment to strike upon the larger net?
ReplyDeleteOr maybe he's just nutty. Or maybe he despised her for some reason and wanted revenge. Hard to know why such things happen.
DeleteWhoever decided to ordain him an elder certainly didn't see him for what he is. The UCG is just a human organization administered by human beings not by God. This case clearly supports that fact.
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ReplyDeletePerhaps they did 'see him for what he is.' But he might have had the 'least dirty, dirty shirt' in his congregation.
Heard him preach at the feast, he was nothing special. Typical ambassador grad Mr perfect. Turns out he wasn't so perfect after all.
ReplyDeleteJudging by UCG attitudes i expect a fierce counter attack from him. I expect him to blame his victim. Paint her as a cartoon character of depression.
Byker Bob said...
ReplyDeleteArmstrongism attracts people who have mental illnesses or are unstable, and causes mental illness in its members who were actually sane and stable when they first came in!
Anonymous said...
Whoever decided to ordain him an elder certainly didn't see him for what he is. The UCG is just a human organization administered by human beings not by God. This case clearly supports that fact.
Human beings who do horrible things are not unique to any organization. WCG did not attract people any more "mentally ill" than any other church or fundamentalist denomination. I grew up with strange adherents to my Presbyterian church. We all know the reputation of "youth leaders" these days in all churches. I never met anyone in the thousands who came in stable and sane and became crazy because of church. Sane and stable is sane and stable. If they slipped into some delusion it is because they probably have done that all their life hoping and skipping from one group or truth to the next.
I had 35 extended family in WCG. Three full time pastors, two local elders, an assortment of deacons and deaconesses. All quite sane when they came in...all quite hopefully real and balanced when in and all quite stable and reasonable when they all went their separate ways.
Religion may bring out the crazies but it is not unique to WCG, Armstrongists or the splinters of today. The ridiculous behaviors of the Pack's, Flurry's , Malm's, Thiels and such came with them into the church. They brought their pious convictions and their marginal information with them into WCG and left with it intact to go on to be even more ridiculous.
All churches have murders, suicides, pedophiles, rapists, narcissists, dictators and the ego centric problems that go with that mixed with a mistaken view of the Bible.
Anonymous said...
Whoever decided to ordain him an elder certainly didn't see him for what he is. The UCG is just a human organization administered by human beings not by God. This case clearly supports that fact."
Because no can see such emotions or behaviors ahead of time. The person would never think they would do such a thing until it is done. It's why people end up saying "I don't know why I did that..." All churches are just human organizations. You can't show me one run by a real God or Jesus. I know it tends to match the one people choose as no one I ever met told me "I know I'm in the false church with false beliefs, but hey...."
It's people. They live with you. You work for them. And anyone can fall into anything at anytime when emotions and clouded thinking take over.
The elder who smoozed me for years, when I got transferred, told the church I was the worst thing that ever happened to the church. He eventually was charged with a crime in his business that sent one of my best friends to prison who worked for him for a couple years.
People are people in every venue of life.
Byker,
ReplyDeleteI thought Stephen Allwine grew up in WCG/UCG, as the child of church members. Like so many now in the splinters, Armstrongism is the only religion he has ever known. As such, I disagree with you that "Armstrongism" itself made him mentally ill or homicidal. More likely, he saw the contrast between what people in the ACOGs teach, what they believe, and how they act. Most likely he is either an atheist who stayed in order to stay with family, or he is a believer who used the post-apostasy understanding of the second resurrection as his excuse to be lawless.
For those who aren't familiar, WCG used to teach that once you were baptized by a WCG minister, you would either come up in the first resurrection or the third. You would either be a spirit being during the Millennium and beyond, or you would go into the Lake of Fire at the third resurrection if you died as an unrepentant sinner.
When WCG fell apart, many changed their understanding of that old teaching. Rather than have to accept that 90 percent of their friends and families would be going to the Lake of Fire, a new idea emerged, that if you were a serious sinner after baptism "you were never really converted," so you would come up in the second resurrection despite your baptism.
Allwine may have taken the new understanding to its logical conclusion: "I never really believed this stuff, and I just got baptized and ordained because it was a social/family expectation. So, I can kill my wife and still come up in the second resurrection." That's a dangerous approach, but it is the logical consequence of what many in the ACOGs now believe.
And such things as repentance, conversion, baptism and good intentions don't significantly change people in my experience. They didn't change me from being one kind of human being with my own perspectives to another. Stopping smoking, drankin' and cussin' does not count for "conversion". That's just stupid growing up. Every third male in SC believes he's a preacher because he quit these things. The education part of knowing what the hell they are actually saying or preachin' eludes them .
ReplyDeleteClaiming to be a preacher in the south is the last credential a man can claim in his egoic delusions that one actually doesn't have to do the hard work to obtain. Then they go back to drankin', smokin' and a cussin'.....as they collect the offering.
Kubik asked for prayers of comfort, healing and understanding for all.
ReplyDeleteI understand, though, and hope that for the comfort and healing of ALL UCG church members, that they leave that shithole church pronto and do their best to join the human race.
Don't these guys watch CSI? I used to work for an arson investigator and it was amazing how clumsy people were about burning their homes/businesses down for insurance purposes. Even in the worst fire, evidence is left behind.
ReplyDeleteAutopsies reveal all sorts of things.
Browser history is forever.
There's something seriously wrong with your theology when murder is an acceptable alternative to divorce.
Regarding Stephen Allwine's ordination as a UCG elder, I believe he was one of the many men ordained by UCG after the COGWA split. Never in the history of the Church of God were so many people ordained so quickly and now UCG is dealing with the reality that they ordained people in haste who were totally unqualified for the position. UCG's approach was...a bunch of elders left so we will create a bunch of new elders to fill the holes. This is one reason why UCG is one of the least trusted or respected of all the COG splinters.
ReplyDeleteNever a truer word spoken anon 8:57. They deliberately ordained men unqualified for the positions to destroy, take over and control.
DeleteThe reality is cronyisim over character has turned many off UCG.
ReplyDeleteThe disUnited Church of Godlessness is where too many unrepentant, unconverted, unbelieving perverts went to behave very badly while playing church.
ReplyDeleteThe old minister for the local UCG congregation seemed like a very nice man but, interestingly, had children who married completely outside of the church and ended up divorced. He seemed to really care about people, though more for those who behaved very badly than for those who did not. He thought that by letting just about anyone attend and behave badly he was “standing in the gap” for them. Unfortunately, he went along with “credentialing” an arrogant younger jerk whose children had also married completely outside of the church and ended up divorced. The new younger jerk, who had been booted from the LCG, and had badgered the UCG to let him become a minister, preferred godless and malicious old perverts from the casino and did not want any real believers. The older minister who really did seem to have a spark of good in him is now retired, and the local UCG congregation is now in the hands of completely godless people.