Acquitted pastor's past resurfaces in lawsuit

April 22, 2005

KATE GOLDEN/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - A Sacramento woman recently filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against a Big Lake pastor acquitted of charges brought against him after he shot her son and another man to death two years ago.

A Palmer Superior Court jury found Phillip D. Mielke, 46, not guilty of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges on Nov. 5, 2003.

Just under the April 24 statutory deadline, Bonnie Pigott, representing the estate of her son, Frank Marion Jones IV, filed a complaint in the same court, seeking more than $100,000 in damages for Jones' mortal wounds.

Charging documents filed by the district attorney based the facts of the criminal case on the defendant's own recollection of the incident as told to Alaska State Troopers:

At 5:09 a.m. April 24, 2003, Mielke called 911 to report he had shot two people at the Big Lake Community Chapel.

Mielke awoke shortly before. A baby monitor inside the church was sending noises to a receiver in Mielke's house.

Mielke dressed, took his .44-caliber Magnum revolver, and went outside. A car outside the church was running. He entered the church through the front door. He saw nothing out of place in the main sanctuary and nothing down the basement stairs, but a side door was damaged and open.

But there were intruders. Mielke said he yelled for them to stop; they did not. Mielke shot at least twice. They fell. One got up and ran toward the car. Mielke shot out a window at the person until his gun was empty. He was "scared to death," he told Alaska State Trooper Sgt. Dallas Massie.

Christopher Palmer, 31, was dead in the roadway near the church, shot once in the lower left back. There were tools on his belt, a knife in his pocket, gloves on his hands and "a number of controlled substances" in his body.

Jones, 23, made it to his home in Big Lake, which was also the home of June Benedix. He died there, with gunshot wounds in his back and ankle. Investigators found drugs in his system, and pills and a knife in his clothing.

To convict Mielke of manslaughter, the jury would have had to find that Mielke did not act in self-defense. It did not.

But the state bore the burden of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a higher standard than the proof required by the corresponding civil complaint for wrongful death: Pigott, representing the estate of her son, Jones, need only prove a preponderance of evidence - or that the death was "more likely than not" a wrongful one.

Alaska statute establishes when one can use deadly force in self-defense. The complaint filed by Pigott's attorney, Eric Jensen, alleges Mielke did not meet those minimum standards.

So far, no suit has been filed by the family of Christopher Palmer.

Mielke declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said his congregation at the church has been "very supportive."

Mielke has until May 17 to answer the complaint.

Contact Kate Golden at

352-2284 or kate.golden@

frontiersman.com.