BEDFORD – A homeless man was arrested after he failed to return a key to Lifepoint Church to the church pastor.
According to Bedford Police Officer Nicholas Lemke, 46-year-old Shawn Dearborn, who was homeless, was given the key to allow him to enter the church to clean paint brushes. Dearborn refused to return the key.
After some time, the pastor gave up on getting the key back and decided to change the locks
on the doors of the church. When he entered the church with the locksmith he discovered items out of place and realized Dearborn had been sleeping at the church. The pastor asked Dearborn to gather his belongings and leave.
The pastor told Dearborn, “You cannot cook here, clean here, or stay here; this is not your house; you can’t do it.”
Then on January 6, the pastor returned to the church to take down Christmas decorations and smelled an odor “that didn’t seem right”. He located Dearborn and a woman in a room in the basement of the church with about 15 candles burning.
The pastor found that Dearborn had used a rock to keep the basement door ajar to reenter the church.
The pastor requested that charges be filed after Dearborn failed to comply with the pastor’s request that he not sleep in the church and a no-trespass order be filed.
Officer Lemke spoke to Dearborn, who said he had been hired to do work at the church and given a key. He said the pastor never asked for the key back. Dearborn told police he had taken the woman to the church to help with the work.
The information was forwarded to the Lawrence County Prosecutor’s Office, and a warrant was issued for Dearborn’s arrest on a charge of criminal trespass.
