BUTLER TWP. — The killing of four people in Butler Twp. on Aug. 5 a year ago added special significance to a community prayer service Friday night at Vandalia-Butler High School.
>>PHOTOS: Unity stressed at Butler Twp. prayer service following 2022 quadruple murder
As many as 80 members of area churches and people in the faith community gathered in the school’s theater under the banner of “Vandalia-Butler Strong,” a faith-based initiative, to pray and worship for township leaders, police and firefighters, and teachers in preparation for the 2023-24 school year, township Trustee Bryson Jackson said.
“We believe that Christ is the hope for our community. We believe he is the only answer,” Jackson said, in light of recent calamities such as the night of tornadoes in 2019, the pandemic in 2020, the shooting of Clearcreek Twp. police Officer Eric Ney in 2022 and the killings of Clyde and Eva Knox, and Sarah and Kayla Anderson in Butler Twp. on Aug. 5, 2022.
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“It’s been a myriad of different things,” Jackson said.
The idea was to give space for people to unite over the common goal of prayer for the city, township, its schools, he said.
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“And to really focus in on that Jesus is the only hope when we’re asking these questions of what do we do?”
Beth Langford of Vandalia came out to honor the memory of the Anderson family.
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Prayer is important because “it’s reaching out to God, who is always with us,” she said. “He is the one who provides for us. He gives us strength and courage to make it through the world that is today that’s filled with, unfortunately, a lot of chaos.”
>>PHOTOS: 4 killed after shooting in Butler Twp. neighborhood in 2022
Cynthia Storie, also of Vandalia, came out to “pray over every chair. . . for everyone that makes Vandalia community.”
The criminal case for Stephen Marlow, accused on more than 20 charges in the deaths of a husband and wife and a mother and her 15-year-old daughter is awaiting the results of a third competency evaluation.
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Marlow, 40, was indicted on 12 aggravated murder charges, eight aggravated burglary charges and one count each of tampering with evidence and having weapons while under disability, according to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court records.
Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. has said the death penalty is “on the table.”
NOTE: The Kayla Anderson Scholarship has been established in the memories of Sarah and Kayla Anderson.
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