‘There Is Only One Way I Can Become Legally Single’: Pastor Tells Gay Lover Before Wife Is Stabbed To Death


An Alabama pastor, Richard Lee Shahan, is on trial for the murder of his wife, Karen Shahan, after she was found stabbed to death in their family home. The wife allegedly had told the husband he must stop living a double-life and make a choice before her murder after it was discovered that Richard was having affairs with men. In one damning email sent by the pastor to one of his lovers that “there is only one way I can become legally single” just prior to his wife’s murder.

According to the Daily Mail, Richard Lee Shahan had sent emails to his male lover noting that he prays for his wife to die so that he could become “legally single” and able to pursue his relationship with the man. The pastor told the male lover “there is only one way I can become legally single” and that the time would come soon and on “God’s timing.”

“There is only one way I could become legally ‘single’ and I have to wait until God grants me that gift. It will come; the woman I live with is slowly killing herself – she is diabetic and refuses to take care of herself physically. Her mother died early with the same disease and did the same thing to her body. So I pray and wait. It will happen in God’s timing.”

AL.com notes that Karen Shahan was not in the dark when it came to her husband’s affairs with men. In fact, emails suggest that she had spoken to Richard about the transgressions and told him to stop living a double life. One email from Karen to a friend outlined the conversation she had had with her husband previously regarding the relations with men.

“I told him that he cannot keep both lives. That he will have to lose one of them. I said that if he was having any interactions that were not right before God that he should go to God and be completely honest with him because he knows anyway. I told him that God will reveal it to me. I told him that any texting or gmailing that does not bring glory to God has to go…”

Though Richard does not deny sending the emails to his two male lovers, one who lived in Nashville and the other in Scotland, he does deny killing his wife. He claims he was in Tennessee visiting his two sons when the murder happened. However, police say the man has a spotty alibi as he checked into his hotel room and turned off his phone at 3:25 p.m. He then went to Wal-Mart and made a purchase before dropping off the grid for 11 hours as he did not return to his hotel room until 2:30 a.m. the next day. It is noted that the drive from his hotel in Tennessee to his Birmingham, Alabama, home was approximately three hours, giving the man plenty of time to have carried out the murder.

Police say Karen was murdered sometime after 9 p.m. when she returned home from work and the next morning when her body was found. However, Richard’s lawyer says the police are relying on circumstantial evidence and that they need more than the motive of running off with his male lovers to convict the pastor.

Richard wasn’t arrested until he attempted to board a plane to Germany where it was noted that he had hoped to obtain entry into the United Kingdom and marry one of his male lovers. He then had planned to give up his U.S. citizenship and became a citizen of the U.K., leaving behind his life entirely in the U.S. Police say he had already said goodbye to his children.

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