Can a Killer Change? Residents Furious Over Murderer's Move to Town

March 26, 2009— -- Can someone who has committed violent crimes change? Some residents of a New England town say absolutely not.

Now those Chichester, N.H., residents have started stocking up on guns and alarm systems to protect themselves against a convicted child murderer who has been taken in by a pastor.

"Ray is a genuine convert," pastor David Pinckney told "Good Morning America" of his new guest. "And his life transformation over the last 16 years. … He just has a stellar record."

Raymond Guay, now 60, was paroled from a West Virginia prison in September after serving 25 years for the 1973 kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old boy and an additional 10 years for other offenses, including the kidnapping of a New Hampshire couple when he briefly escaped from state prison in 1982.

Court records show he also stabbed a fellow inmate at a California federal prison in 1991.

Despite Guay's violent criminal record, Pinckney and his family of five children invited the ex-con to live in their basement when officials insisted Guay finish out his parole in New Hampshire after living and working in Connecticut since his release.

Guay, who says he's found Jesus and changed his ways, eats with the Pinckneys and prays with them.

And the neighbors are furious.

"He has the temptation of all these children in this neighborhood," said Kim Mitchell, who, along with her husband, no longer allows their boys to play outside alone. "I understand he found God, but there's also temptation."

One of the neighbors even threatened to burn down the pastor's house.

"Well, first of all it wasn't something we were planning in 2009. It wasn't one of our top goals," Pinckney told "Good Morning America." "But the deal is, we just feel that Jesus wants us to do this."

Guay told "Good Morning America" that he can't change his past, but he wants to prove he's a good person now.

But the neighbors and the family of Guay's child victim say finding religion may not be enough.

Finding Jesus After Murder?

John Lindovski was 12 when he was snatched while walking home from an after-school dance in Nashua, N.H. The sixth-grader was found in the woods wearing only his socks, underwear and eyeglasses.

His family said Guay has never asked them for forgiveness.

"You don't shoot a little boy in the face and find Jesus," Lindovski's sister, Randy Zimmerman, said. "A person who can do that is just not capable of that."

There have been town meetings and regular protests outside the Pinckney home, where Guay has been invited to live for two months, until he gets back on his feet.

Police drive by the house hourly. Residents have set up a tent across the street to monitor Guay's moves. Others track him as he looks for a job.

Mitchell said her town isn't the place for Guay.

"I'd say there are more deserving people to give second chances to," she said. "The child he murdered doesn't get a second chance. His mom doesn't get a second chance."

Pinckney maintains, however, that Guay has changed and is now living a peaceful life.

"I think people change. If people don't change, the Gospel has no merit," he said. "And we're kind of a hopeless society if we don't believe people change."