(I’m just posting this here because the Lebanon Democrat doesn’t have a website)
by Brooks Franklin
Lebanon Democrat, January 10, 2003
Members of a Mt. Juliet church were “looking for answers” after the shocking arrest of their music minister on federal firearms charges, an official says.
Green Hill Baptist Church minister of music Mark Lancaster, 40, of Page Drive remained in federal custody on Thursday, one day after agents of the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco and Firearms confiscated 15 machine guns from his home.
A telephone mssage left at Lancaster’s home went unanswered, as did a message left at the church, which has a website describing the suspect as the congregation’s first full time minister of music since his hiring in 1998.
But a local law enforcement official who is also a member of the church’s congregation said he fielded several telephone calls throught the day from other members “curious” about Lancaster’s arrest.
“A lot of people were calling looking for answers,” said Mt. Juliet Police Chief Kenny Martin. “I think it’s probably troubling for the church.”
Martin whose department sent two detectives to assist ATF agents during the search acknowledged the arrest cretated an “awkward situation” for him as a member of the church.
“But it’s like I told someone else, it just goes to prove that crime really doesn’t know any boundaries at all,” he said.
An ATF spokesperson said Lancaster, describted as cooperative during the search and his subsequent arrest, is believed to have fired three rounds from one of the machine guns into a church bus, though exactly when or why remained unclear.
In afflidavits filed by agents requesting a search warrant, one officer said a telephone caller told AFT agents Lancaster had “converted the Green Hill Baptist Church bus into a shooting range.”
But that statement turned out to be – at least in part – inaccurate, according to ATF spokesperson Mark Leiser.
“It was not converted into a shooting range. It was a bus that had been used… It’s not an old bus that was somewhere out in a field,” he said.
Asked if the bus was in use by the church recently. Leiser replied, “It’s my understanding it was.”
Agents conducting interviews in Mt. Juliet after fielding the telephone complaint saw the three bullet holes in the bus, Leiser said.
The telephone caller also went on to describe Lancaster as “manic depressive, unstable and a Nazi buff,” Leiser confirmed, though he emphasized that agents found no evidence of the suspect was involed with any hate groups.
“There was no evidence at all that he was a Nazi sympathizer or anything like that,” Leiser said.
The unflattering remarks from the anonymous telephone caller are far removed from the description of Lancaster on the church’s website.
There he is described as a man who holds a Master’s Degree in church muisc from Gold Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and a Bachelor of Arts in musical performance from the University of South Florida. The website says Lancaster, a married father of two, has also been affilliated in the past with churches in Florida, California and Virginia.
Leiser also confirmed that Lancaster held a federal firearms license as a collector of curios but said he did not possess the proper licenses for possessing the machine guns, some of which were described by an agent as having historical value while others were said to be cheaply manufactured and assembled.
No ammuntion was seized from the home because Lancaster was not violating any federal laws governing possession of ammuntion for machine guns, Leiser said.
Lancaster faces a Jan. 16 hearing before a federal magistrate as well as potentially severe penalties if found guilty. He could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each charge, officials said.
Authorities are expected to ask the magistrate in custody until his trial which would likely be several months away.