THOUGH SHALL NOT STEAL A CHURCH - In one of the most unusual cases of grand theft ever reported in Laurens County was the actual theft of a church. No, I did not say a theft of something in the church. I said the entire church building. On September 12, 1952, the Deacons of Ebenezer Baptist Church appeared before Laurens County Justice of the Peace Hill G. Thomas to swear out a warrant for the thief, or should I say the alleged thief, whom they accused of stealing their church building. Deacon Ivey Stanley testified that when he was ill during the month of August when he abandoned his work on repairing the church. Upon his return to the job, he found, much to his dismay, that the church building was gone. Stanley formed his own one member posse and scoured the countryside for the missed church. He found the transformed structure in the southern part of the county. After an intense interrogation, the deacon found that Belle Coley sold the building to a Jab Haynes. Haynes then dismantled the structure, moved the materials to a remote location and assembled them into his personal residence. The duo was convicted of the theft and receiving stolen goods respectively.
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