Suspects on the Lam Get Closure from Pastor

July 8, 2008— -- The Rev. Ron Christian was in South Jersey last week, ministering to one of his flock, when his cell phone rang. The caller was a parishioner with an urgent message: Nicole Guyette needed to see him.

Guyette, 18, was not just anyone in distress. At that moment, she was one of Newark's most wanted, accused of murdering Sujeiti Ocasio hours after Ocasio graduated from Barringer High School.

Christian sped back to Irvington. He sat with Guyette for an hour in his office at Christian Love Baptist Church. The two prayed. They talked about remorse, forgiveness and God's spirit, he says.

Then he called the cops, who came and led the young woman away in handcuffs.

Guyette, who has no direct ties to the church and had never met Christian before June 28, was the latest person to seek out the pastor as an intermediary before surrendering to police.

It is a role Christian, 43, has played often in the past two years.

In September James Madison, the so-called Hat Bandit, initially rejected an offer to plead guilty to robbing banks. He changed his mind after speaking to Christian, his pastor, about closure and responsibility.

"I encouraged him to do what was right," Christian said. "Regardless of how incorrect or how bad the circumstance was, there needs to be a place where you are honest with God."

Two years ago, Bernard Hoover, a man wanted for murdering his father, contacted Christian through a relative. The 21-year-old wanted to attend his father's funeral at Christian Love Baptist Church and wanted to see his mother before the police took him into custody.

He was arrested at the church.

Then there are the smaller, low-profile cases. There was a drug dealer eluding police in Trenton who asked to speak to the pastor before he surrendered.

"If you have a serious problem, especially murder, you can't run into an average church and say: 'I just killed someone. I don't know what to do,"' said Christopher Carson, chairman of the church's deacon board and one of Christian's childhood friends. "They'll close the office door and call the police."