Defrocked priest fled to Italy with teen he had been ‘grooming’: cops

Police in Cellular, Alabama, are investigating a defrocked priest over claims that he had been “grooming” a current highschool grad earlier than the pair shipped out to Italy. 

Former priest Alex Crow, 30, is on the run with a 18-year-old graduate of McGill-Toolen Catholic Excessive College, the place he spoke in theology lessons and heard confessions, in accordance with local reports.

Though police initially didn’t suspect any romance between the pair, they quickly found that the teenager had acquired a love letter from the unholy man on Valentine’s Day, whereas she was nonetheless a scholar.

“I consider there was some grooming that’s gone on, and also you’ve obtained a a lot older grownup interacting with teenage ladies in an inappropriate means,” Sheriff Paul Burch told NBC 15. He additionally prompt that extra feminine college students could have been concerned with Crow.

Crow, who was ordained in 2021, had been assigned to the Corpus Christi Parish, however was faraway from the clergy by the Archdiocese of Cellular final month after he deserted his put up and ran off to Europe with the teenager. 

“His conduct is completely unbecoming of a priest,” Archbishop Thomas Rodi said in a statement final month. “He has been knowledgeable by the archbishop that he could not train ministry as a priest, nor to inform individuals he’s a priest, nor to decorate as a priest.”

Burch famous that Crow, who was as soon as in a rock band, had a fascination with demonology, and informed people who he was going to Europe with the teenager to carry out exorcisms.

On a 2022 podcast, Crow shared {that a} priest carried out a “minor exorcism” on him a number of years in the past, which finally cured him of weird well being points like migraines and chest pains, AL.com reported.

The sheriff informed Fox10 that Crow and the teenager haven’t any plans to return to Cellular, regardless of the lady’s mum or dad flying to Italy and begging their daughter to return residence.