Murder Suspect Nabbed at Church as Sheriff Delivers Sermon

A local sheriff was unaware that while he was in the middle of delivering a sermon at church, his deputies were outside negotiating with a murder suspect who was sitting inside. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told WFLA that he heard his phone going off in his pocket as he was speaking at Green Pond Baptist Church in Polk City on Sunday but chose to ignore it. Little did he know that 56-year old John Skeen of Polk City was also sitting inside, wanted for the murder of a man in Hillsborough County on March 10. According to WFLA, deputies began texting Skeen’s brother, who was also inside the church. After some back and forth, both the brother and Skeen left the church and met cops outside. “Deputies managed to get Skeen outside of the church without disrupting the service,” a statement from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said. Skeen then asked if he could go back inside and finish the service so he could “dedicate his life to the Lord before going to jail.” Cops instead told Skeen that they could “take a moment to pray together before going to the Sheriff’s Processing Center to be booked in. And that’s just what they did. Suspect and deputy prayed together outside of the church, and then off he went to jail.”