When the Rev. Mark Miller discovered that the century-old welcome sign in front of his church had been destroyed last August, he initially assumed it was vandalism.
It wouldn’t have been the first time Westminster Presbyterian Church was targeted. Just a year before, in fact, more than a dozen windows and a door on the church building in St. Louis’ Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood had been broken. And that the Pride flag in front of the church disappeared this time didn’t seem like a coincidence.
In
an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
soon after the sign’s destruction, Miller noted the circumstances: Tire tracks were visible heading towards the sign, and no swerve marks suggested the crash was unintentional. But if someone crashed into the brick edifice with a vehicle, they’d also taken surprising care to clean up. “The crazy thing is there’s no debris from a car,” he told the daily.
It wasn’t until a friendly neighbor got in touch that Miller learned something even crazier.