COLUMBIA – Windermere Baptist Conference Center’s president and chief executive officer was arrested here Aug. 5 and stands accused of soliciting for — and attempting to have — sex with a dog.
Boone County Sheriff’s Department Cyber Crimes Task Force detectives arrested Jerald (Jerry) Lee Hill, 56, of Roach, MO, following an investigation that began in late July when Hill posted an ad on Craigslist soliciting for an animal with which to have sex. A detective with the Boone County Sheriff’s Department Cyber Crimes Task Force went under cover and exchanged emails with Hill, getting him to travel to Columbia to engage in the act, according to KOMU television in Columbia. Detectives met the accused at a predetermined location and took Hill into custody.Tracy Perkins with the Cyber Crimes Task Force told ABC 17 News in Columbia. that a Craigslist user saw what Hill was asking for, flagged it as inappropriate, and then left a tip for the Cyber Crimes Task Force. Perkins said the primary responsibility of the cyber crimes unit is to protect children, adding that in her years of working with the task force, she had seen a correlation between bestiality and child pornography.
“It’s under that dark world and it’s that area where nobody wants to get caught doing. This person in particular I think just got very bold,” Perkins told ABC 17 News.
ABC News 17 said it had contacted Windermere Baptist Conference Center several times for comment, but had not heard back. In a story in Word & Way, Windermere board chairman Arthur Mallory expressed support for Jerry Hill and gratitude for his work, at Windermere, and called this a “personal issue with Jerry Hill.” The paper said the board would meet next week and “likely will choose a new executive.”
Hill was named president and chief executive officer by Windermere’s self-perpetuating trustee board Jan. 24, 2013. Hill’s wife, Janet, was named Windermere’s vice president for ministry programming on the same day.
Hill was trained as an attorney at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law and has worked mostly in business and consulting. He graduated from William Jewell College in Liberty. Married for 34 years, the Hills have two sons, both attorneys, and a teen-aged daughter, according to the Word and Way. Hill is the brother of former MBC Executive Director Jim Hill.
The Missouri Baptist Convention has had no control over or affiliation with the Windermere organization since 2001, when its trustees changed the corporate charter without approval of the Convention to become a self-perpetuating board. Missouri courts have held that the charter change was legal.
See ABC 17’s report by clicking the link below:
http://www.abc17news.com/news/man-arrested-on-suspision-of-attempting-to-have-sex-with-dog/27343858
