A series of sinister emails sent to a leading televangelist’s security team raised concerns about the man’s family – but discovering the true culprit stunned police
A security guard’s frantic call to police to check on his family unravelled a terrifying tale of lies and murder.
Former US Marine Chris Coleman called police in May 2009 to ask them to check on his family because he’d been unable to reach them by telephone.
But when police arrived at the family’s lakeside home in the city of Columbia, Illinois, they found a horrifying scene. Thirty-one-year-old Sheri Coleman and their sons, 11-year-old Garret and 9-year-old Gavin were all dead in their beds – apparently strangled by an intruder.
Threatening messages such as “punished’ had been spray painted on the walls of the house, which together with a history of threatening letters sent to Coleman and his boss, religious author Joyce Meyer, led investigators to believe that a stranger with a grudge had targeted the Colemans.
True crime podcaster Annie Elise explains that Joyce Meyer was a controversial figure at the time. She said: “She was the televangelist at the time. She was raking in millions of dollars. She was flying private. She was preaching around the world. She also had a hit TV show called Enjoying Everyday Life. And by 2002, she was signing $10 million book deals.
“However, all of that success came with a lot of controversy,” Annie added, explaining that questions were being asked about how a self-proclaimed “servant of God” had managed to amass such enormous wealth.
“Protesters started showing up to her events. People were calling her a fraud, a thief, you name it…”
It was for that reason that the charismatic preacher had decided to hire a burly ex-marine to head up her security team. Annie continued: “Joyce didn’t skimp when it came to paying her security team. Chris was pulling in a low six figure salary. Not too bad.
She added: “At first, he was very into it. The travel, the money, everything. It all just felt very exciting. But after a while, he started to see the cracks. He would tell his neighbours that his job was mostly ‘looking intimidating” and that Joyce was never really in any real danger.”
But then Joyce began to receive disturbing emails, warning her that if she didn’t abandon her ministry then Coleman’s family would suffer.
The threats escalated, and Coleman installed security cameras around his house to protect his family. He also spoke to a police officer friend about the threatening messages and asked what else he could do to keep them safe.
“Then came the morning of May 5th, 2009,” Annie recalled. “Chris woke up early. He wanted to hit the gym before work. Nothing unusual. He kissed his wife Sherry goodbye and left the house at 5:45 a.m. And while he was at the gym working out, he sent his wife Sheri a text message saying, ‘Hey, wake up and check on the boys’. But he got no reply.”
Coleman called his police officer neighbour and asked him to check in with Sheri. What the neighbour found shocked him to the core.
A window had apparently been forced open and inside the house were a series of threatening messages written in blood-red spray-paint. The messages warned “I am always watching.” Another read “I saw you leave” and a third said simply “You have paid.”
When investigators reached the two boys’ bedrooms, they found both of the youngsters dead. Spray-painted on 9-year-old Gavin’s bed was a message police found so disturbing that its content has never to this day been made public.
Sheri was found naked, face down on her bed having been assaulted and then strangled. She had apparently fought with her attacker before eventually being overpowered and killed.
But after closer examination of the crime scene, certain things didn’t add up. Annie explains: “We know that Chris left for the gym at 5:45 a.m. That was caught on security camera footage. Police arrived just before 6:45 a.m.
“So whoever did this had under an hour to murder three people and then spray paint all of these threats on the walls and on the bed sheets. That was a lot of activity for under 60 minutes.”
Post mortem examinations suggested that Sheri and her two sons may have died before Coleman left for the gym. Raising more suspicions, Coleman barely reacted at all when he was told that his wife and children had been murdered, and he had scratches on his arms that he seemed unwilling to explain.
Coleman’s alibi unravelled further when he insisted on handing his phone to officers, convinced that his “wake up” message to Sheri would prove his innocence. But the text he’d sent – which he insisted was a regular occurrence – was the first and only time he had ever sent such a message.
Other messages on Coleman’s phone revealed that he had been openly talking about divorce, and expressing concern that Sheri would end up getting a share of the money he had been making in his new well-paid job.
Most damning of all, detectives found evidence that Coleman had been pursuing an extramarital affair with Sherry’s former best friend, Tara Lintz.
When Tara was questioned, the former strip club cocktail waitress admitted to investigators that she had been sexting with Coleman since November 2008 and that he had promised to marry her after divorcing his wife.
That was enough for prosecutors to charge Coleman. In May 2011, Coleman, 34, was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. While the prosecution spoke of asking for the death penalty, the State of Illinois had scrapped capital punishment shortly before the trial began.
Instead, he was sentenced to spend the remainder of his natural life in prison. Coleman’s defence attorney told the judge that he had effectively passed a death sentence, saying: “You know a life sentence condemns him to a six by eleven foot coffin where he’ll be with another man 23 hours a day. You know all too well what a horrible punishment it is to put a person in prison and know he will die there.”