'Missionary of Lucifer' Sentenced to 42 Years

I N D I A N A P O L I S, Nov. 14, 2000 -- A self-described “missionary of Lucifer” was sentenced to more than 42½ years in prison today for burning 26 churches during an eight-state rampage in the 1990s.

Jay Scott Ballinger, 38, of Yorktown, Ind., was also ordered by a federal judge to pay $3.6 million in restitution. He had pleaded guilty in July to 29 charges, including 20 counts of damaging religious property.

He still faces federal charges in Georgia for five church fires in 1998 and 1999, including one that killed a firefighter.

The plea agreement said Ballinger “frequently expressed his hostility toward organized Christianity, signed individuals he met to contracts with the devil and termed himself a missionary of Lucifer.”

He pleaded guilty in connection with more fires than any other defendant since President Clinton formed the National Church Arson Task Force in 1996 in response to a string of fires, many of them at black churches across the South.

Ballinger is white; he is suspected of setting fire to both black and white churches.

Caught by Off-Duty Cop

Ballinger was arrested in 1999 after suffering burns from a church fire he allegedly set in Ohio. An off-duty policeman questioned him after remembering Ballinger’s name from an earlier church fire investigation.

Federal authorities initially said Ballinger admitted burning 30 to 50 churches in 11 states between 1994 and 1998.

Ballinger, a mostly unemployed high-school dropout who lived with his parents before the arson spree, admitted burning churches in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, South Carolina and California.

Ballinger’s companion, Angela Wood, 25, of Athens, Ga., pleaded guilty a year ago to several arson-related counts. She is awaiting sentencing.