Gay Panic Killer Is Mormon Priest

John Joe Thomas, the 28-year-old man who stoned mentally handicapped senior citizen Murray Seidman to death, was a priest in the Mormon church, reports the Philadelphia Daily News.

Thomas, after becoming a Mormon priest (a position most males in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attain at age 16), baptized the Jewish-born Seidman in the LDS Church. Thomas had befriended the 70-year-old Seidman, who was found dead in his apartment last month, hit 10 times in the head with a rock stuffed inside one of his own socks.

After Thomas was arrested, he said he killed Seidman because the Old Testament compelled him to do so after the older man allegedly made sexual advances toward him -- Seidman's brother says it was beyond Murray's abilities to be sexual attracted to anyone. It was discovered that Thomas was the sole beneficiary of Seidman's will.

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