Posted on 03/29/2008 6:09:34 PM PDT by traumer
RIVERSIDE, OH (WIVB) - - Missing since Wednesday, Lyndonville pastor Craig Rhodenizer was found early Friday morning inside a strip club, KC Lounge, in Riverside, Ohio near Dayton.
Officer Rhett close spoke with the pastor in the parking lot.
Rhett Close, Riverside Police Officer, "He started to become a little bit emotionally stressed at that point. State he didn't know how he got there or why he was even ther."
While the pastor may not remember how he got to the club, at least one dancer there claims to remember what he did while he was there. According to the police report, the dancer says the pastor was there for about two hours, had 3 or 4 drinks and an equal number of private dances.
The dancer claims the pastor used obsessive profanity and offered to pay her to go back to a hotel.
Susan Rhodenizer, Pastor's wife, "Very, very surprising. Totally out of character."
Police spotted Rhodenizer's car in the parking lot. His New York license plate led them to investigate and they discovered he had been reported missing. Remember police say he acted incoherent when they questioned him outside the club. Workers tell police.
Det. Matthew Sturgeon, Riverside Police Department, "It appeared that he was pretty coherent inside the bar. He knew that if he started acting out of balance and not being able to answer questions pretty quickly that we would react as far as medical attention."
What would cause the pastor to behave this way?
Susan Rhodenizer, Pastor's wife, "I would say job related stresses that had accumulated over the past year."
Det. Matthew Sturgeon, Riverside Police Department, "I don't think the road patrol officers weren't convinced that he was acting."
Story by Mylous Hairston (WIVB)
RIVERSIDE, Ohio (WIVB) - Police in Ohio say they found a missing pastor from Niagara County in a place where many people would not expect to find a man of the cloth. Now investigators are trying to determine how he got there.
Lyndonville Pastor Craig Rhodenizer, missing since Wednesday, was found early Friday morning, hundreds of miles away, inside a strip club in Riverside, Ohio which is just outside of Dayton.
Riverside Police Officer Rhett Close said, "I was able to locate the individual in there and asked him to come outside so I could speak with him in private."
Pastor Craig, who leads the faithful at St. John's Lutheran Church, talked with the officer who sensed something wasn't right.
Officer Rhett Close said, "He started to become a little bit emotionally stressed at that point; stated he didn't know how he got there or why he was even there."
The pastor, his wife and their son were supposed be on vacation at Disney World.
Susan Rhodenizer spoke with News 4 Thursday before knowing her husband's whereabouts.
Susan Rhodenizer said, "I just hope that I will have the strength to deal with whatever comes."
Authorities say good police work helped them find the pastor. His license plate stood out in the strip club's parking lot.
Lewiston Police Department Sergeant Frank Previte said, "It was not so nice a part of town where it was located. That led to the officer's suspicion to run the vehicle because it was an out of state plate."
Susan Rhodenizer thought her husband was on his way to Best Buy Wednesday when his drive led him to Ohio.
Police talked with his wife about her husband's state of mind.
Sergeant Frank Previte said, "She stated there was nothing unusual. He was under some stress because of the Lenten season and Easter."
Pastor Rhodenizer is being evaluated at a hospital in Dayton, Ohio.
Story by Mylous Hairston, WIVB.
RIVERSIDE, Ohio (WIVB) - There are new developments Friday morning into the disappearance and discovery of a missing Niagara County preacher.
Pastor Craig Rhodenizer was found by police in Riverside near Dayton, Ohio, hundreds of miles from home. A Riverside officer said Pastor Craig Rhodenizer was found outside a strip club in that community.
The officer says a policeman on patrol checked the license plate of a car parked there because it was from another state. They found Rhodenizer after determining he was the subject of a missing persons report.
While he's physically okay, police told News 4 Rhodenizer is undergoing a mental evaluation. Police found him distraught and confused, and unsure of why he was in Ohio after saying he would make a trip from Lyndonville to Best Buy in Amherst.
On Thursday, a search was under way for the missing Western New York pastor. Family members of Craig Rhodenizer said it's not like him to just disappear.
"This is highly uncharacteristic," said his wife Susan Rhodenizer.
Susan Rhodenizer can't imagine what could've happened to her husband. They were supposed to leave on a trip to Disney Thursday morning with their 9-year-old son but he turned up missing Wednesday afternoon.
He ran his church mostly from his home office in Lewiston. In fact, the only thing he had with him was his computer tower from home.
"He said well actually, I'm on my way to Best Buy with our computer tower to get it fixed. He had done that previously," said Susan.
That's the last contact she had with him, when she called his cell phone Wednesday afternoon 4:18 p.m. He had just filled up his car at a gas station in Lewiston around 4 p.m., and said he was on his way to Best Buy in Amherst, but hasn't been heard from since.
"For a normal everyday person, somebody who would be involved in the type of profession that he is, very rare that they wouldn't have some sort of contact," said Sgt. Frank Previte, Lewiston Police.
But police had managed to trace his cell phone, by picking up a signal on a cell tower, police know his cell phone was in a neighboring state just after 9 p.m. Wednesday night.
I’d say that if he hadn’t been under a bit of “traumer” before, he is now.
"Because he never offers to pay me to go to a hotel!"
Do what now?
He must have already been “off the rails”. I can tell because he was taking his computer to Best Buy to have it “fixed”. That’s one of the clear warning signs.
If only Lutheran pastors were allowed to marry ...
H went to the strip bar to save the souls...
“While the pastor may not remember how he got to the club, at least one dancer there claims to remember what he did while he was there.”
Was he ‘ridin dirty’?
Um, Pastor you might start explaining yourself
“The devil made me do it”....Flip Wilson as Geraldine!
When I’m dazed and confused, I always head to the nearest strip club, don’t you?
Already posted but then who searches anymore anyway!
“If only Lutheran pastors were allowed to marry ...”
LOL
I’m not Catholic, but I always like that line, and I see it often because it applies to so many stories, from school teachers to preachers and Rabbis, to scout leaders and policemen, and government officials.
The poor pastor from NY caught that awful infectious bug going around... ‘Spitzeritis’... Nothing a little public resignation couldn’t cure.
I’m more shocked at the news reports. It appears a student wrote and typed them all.
Why oh why do they always come to Ohio?
Bill Klinton and Hussein Obama are in the line to join this errant pastor’s church.
Congressmen call them Fact Finding trips.
Being a pastor is very stressful.
Do they have a rehab for pastors when they lapse into profane, lap-dancing binges?
“Well, I’m DASHED!”
Colonel Pickering to Professor Higgins; “MY FAIR LADY”.
Sounds to me like he had some kind of mental breakdown.
You mean the little head took control away from the big head?
Eggsaxtly.
Breakdown....LOL...
Is that the guy from Fleetwood Mac?
WHO?
It's either there or Minnesota.
Who?
So was he outside, as per the headline, or inside, as per the lede?
Sorry, I was having a flashback.
Just remember, like everyone else, you and I are unique.
LOL!
Right...
I shudder to think what level of cussin' a stripper would have to hear coming from a club patron to note it as "obsessive" (or "excessive," which is the word I suspect the author actually intended in this abysmally-written article). It's bound to be a pretty high threshold to warrant her noticing it.
One forms a mental image of the wayward pastor letting go with every pent-up bad word he never could let out before, and being so unnatural and AWKWARD with his cussin' grammar it stood out like a sore thumb, LOL!
Yup, drive several hundred miles away, forget out of town, I go out of state, don’t call anyone, get liquored up and go to a strip club.
Works wonders!
How ‘bout you?
I can picture someone like comedian Gene Wilder looking
around and saying, “Why, no, officer, I have no idea where I
am or how I got here. And I especially don’t remember
what happened inside”.
yeah I mean there are much better strip clubs in TN and FL
You know, Barnacle, I don’t like to think the absolute worst of people and I do believe something happened to him that wasn’t a normal event. You can be cynical if you like, but I hope one day when something like this happens to you or a loved one that you will understand compassion. Apparently you don’t, yet.
Yes, he certainly could have had something happen mentally or emotionally to him. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. YOU don’t know him nor do you know what really happened. I hope someday someone gives YOU that grace.
No, I mean he could have had a breakdown mentally or emotionally. Have some grace. You may need it yourself some day.
Mary, if you get any more holy you will be walking on water.
No, I don’t think so. Like Peter, I’d fall right in (LOL).
Maybe he decided he had to blow off some steam, so he headed for a local strip club. But, once there, he realized he might run into a parishioner. Now, the parishioner would be embarrassed, but the pastor would be mortified. It might even cost him his job. So, he went across the county line, then the state line. Finally, he decided to apply to 400 mile rule, just to be safe.
When he finally arrived in Dayton, he suddenly realized he had no alaby and now he was really in a bind.
Well, there is only one sensible solution to all those problems at that point. Get drunk, go absolutely wild. And, then claim temporary insanity.
He has the good time he was looking for and gets sympathy instead of scorn. The whole thing will probably work out better for him than if he had stayed in town.
Mary, since we have been bumping heads from time to time,
I’m going to ask for your prayers. If you don’t object I will put you in mine as well.
I am only happy to pray for you, and I will be blessed to have you pray for me. Anything special?
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