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===Endorsement of a murderer=== | ===Endorsement of a murderer=== | ||
Jack, a performative Christian, | Jack, a performative Christian, is a long-time member and public booster of [[Cornerstone Church]] in Madison, Tennessee, an Assemblies of God megachurch led for 27 years by Maury Davis. Jack has, on multiple occasions, promoted a book authored by Davis recounting his "redemption" testimony: a testimony that begins with the events of 27 January 1975. | ||
On that date, an 18-year-old Davis and an accomplice, Ricky Payne, entered a vacant house in Irving, Texas, under the pretence of inspecting it for purchase. The home was being shown to them by Jo Ella Liles, a 54-year-old Sunday School teacher whose husband managed the property. After Davis spilled paint on his boots, he stabbed Liles repeatedly with a buck knife, severing her carotid artery and windpipe and slicing into her spinal cord, nearly decapitating her. Payne witnessed the killing without intervening. Davis then took his bloodied clothes to a dry cleaner and went to lunch. He was arrested the following day and admitted his guilt to his father by phone, saying, "Daddy, I'm in jail for murder. And I'm guilty."<ref>Hargrove, Brantley. "A grieving son finds no justice on Rev. Maury Davis' path to redemption." ''Nashville Scene'', 16 April 2009. https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/a-grieving-son-finds-no-justice-on-rev-maury-davis-path-to-redemption/article_49a25371-a201-5abd-a205-b3e31b5b41b0.html</ref> | |||
Despite the prosecution seeking the electric chair or life imprisonment, Davis's defence - which blamed the killing on insanity, drug use and demonic influence - secured a manslaughter conviction with a maximum 20-year sentence. He was paroled after serving roughly eight and a half years, citing prison overcrowding and good behaviour, and was a free man at age 27. He claims to have undergone a jailhouse conversion to Christianity during the trial. | |||
Davis became senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in 1991, when it had approximately 250 members, and grew it into a megachurch with a 3,200-seat sanctuary and a televised ministry. He stepped down from the senior pastor role in 2018 and now operates as a "global pastor," travelling and consulting. Ron Liles, the only son of Jo Ella Liles, has described watching Davis preach as watching "Satan's angel," telling the ''Nashville Scene'' in 2009 that "the price of his spiritual rebirth, his professed salvation, was the blood" of his mother. | |||
Jack and his family continue to attend Cornerstone Church and have appeared in the congregation across multiple decades of his content. He has at no point in his public output addressed the Liles murder, the trial, the manslaughter plea, or Ron Liles' position on his pastor. | |||
==Gallery== | ==Gallery== | ||