Church Shocked Over Fake Funeral

A Richmond church was shocked to learn that the subject of a funeral at its place of worship was in fact alive and well in Iowa.

Ron Chappell, pastor at New Life Ministries Church of the Nazarene, said he was contacted by a member of his congregation about the death of a girl in Iowa and her mother's wish to have a funeral service.

Chappell on Tuesday conducted a funeral for the 15-year-old girl, who her mother, Angela Boyd, claimed had been raped and murdered by her father in Iowa.

"She showed up with an urn and a box that was marked for donations to the Autism Society," Chappell said. "She came up and began to read from a handwritten statement, and it just tore us up. People were crying. Mothers were bawling. I was crushed."

After Boyd finished speaking, her brother, Brian LeMaster, walked to the podium and informed everyone that the girl was not dead.

LeMaster had heard about the funeral plans and contacted family and authorities in Iowa to check on the story.

"At first, I am thinking, 'That's right, she has gone to be with the Lord,'" Chappell said. "But then he says he has talked with (the girl's) grandmother and he talked with the police in Iowa and they validated that she is in a facility for children with disabilities and behavior problems and she is actually alive."

Chappell, who filed a report Thursday with Richmond police, said Boyd ran from the church and has not been seen since. He thinks she faked the girl's death and planned the funeral to get money.

Boyd is listed as the defendant in two felony theft cases in Wayne County Superior Court II. Both were scheduled to have change of plea and sentencing hearings Dec. 6.

In the end, she did not get any money from her effort.

"All the money we got Sunday from the offering for her we had kept to give her after the funeral, and she left the donation box," Chappell said. "The donation box is (in police evidence), so she didn't get any money out of it."

Chappell said that church members adjourned to eat the meal that members had prepared for the family, and while they were eating, LeMaster contacted the girl's grandmother and put her on speaker phone.

"If there is anything good to come out of this, it is that (the girl) is alive and everything is OK in Iowa," Chappell said. "But when the father heard about it, he was very upset."

Police are in the early stages of investigating the incident and are unsure what crimes might have been committed.

"It is not something you run into too often, and we just got the report, so we are starting to look at it and see what happened," Richmond Police Department Lt. Brad Berner said Thursday afternoon.

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