Richard Shahan, former children and families pastor for First Baptist Church, Birmingham, pleaded not guilty to the 2013 slaying of his wife in a Feb. 2 hearing before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Laura Petro.
Petro ruled on two pre-trial motions in the hearing, one granting a routine preservation of evidence and the other allowing prosecutors 90 days to begin providing defense attorneys with more of the collected evidence for the case. Petro will address the other five motions in the next hearing scheduled for May 7. Until then Shahan will remain under house arrest.
Karen Louise Shahan was found dead July 23, 2013, in the home the couple rented from First, Birmingham, where her husband had served since 2009. Shahan told police he was out of town visiting the couple’s adult children during the time of the murder.
In August 2013 police held Shahan for 48 hours for questioning. He was put on administrative leave from the church that same month and resigned in December 2013, announcing plans to move overseas to serve three years as a missionary.
He was arrested New Year’s Day 2014 attempting to leave the country indefinitely.
Shahan waived a preliminary hearing in February 2014 and was indicted by a grand jury in August 2014, but the information wasn’t made public until Oct. 22, 2014.
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