Former Crossroads Christian Church children’s pastor, Matthew Lee Richards, who was arrested and charged with attempting to murder his wife and children and burn down their foreclosed home in Kansas because he didn’t want them to discover they were being evicted, has pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder.
Richards, 43, who initially faced four charges of attempted first-degree murder, one charge of attempted capital murder and one charge of aggravated arson, entered the guilty pleas on Tuesday, according to the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office, KMBC News reported.
Investigators said they were called along with the local fire department to the family’s home about a report of a disturbance and a house fire at 3:47 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2023.
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They soon discovered that the pastor’s children and wife suffered “laceration injuries of varying degrees.” Richard’s wife and two of his children were hospitalized at the time. His 19-year-old son and two of his other children were treated and released.
Police statements cited in an affidavit said they received several 911 calls about Richards’ attack.
“One of the callers said their dad [was] chasing them with a knife and the dispatcher could hear a fire alarm sounding in the background,” the affidavit said. “An additional caller stated she had been stabbed.”
When police got to the scene, smoke was billowing from the house and an explosion blew out the garage doors. According to the affidavit, one of the children told officers, “They were all in bed when dad came around stabbing everyone and they all ran outside. He stated his dad stabbed him.”
Investigators said after Richards was treated at the hospital for smoke inhalation, he confessed in an interview, “I stabbed my family.”
Prior to the attack, the family had lived in the four-bedroom, 2.5 bathroom home in Shawnee since it was purchased in December 2016. Civil court records cited by the Kansas City Star show that in November 2022, a foreclosure petition was filed for the home.
Richards, who had been working as a seventh-grade English teacher at Christ Preparatory Academy since 2020, according to his staff biography, and his wife, Stephanie, who was the director of Crossroads Christian Preschool and Parents Day Out, owed $155,429 on their mortgage at the time.
Public records indicate the home was sold in June 2023.
Richards will be sentenced on March 26.
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