Cops: Slain pastor was ministering to her alleged killer

Rev. Marita Harrell is remembered as a ‘ray of sunshine.’

A Dekalb County man is facing a murder charge after police said he fatally stabbed a beloved Atlanta pastor and set fire to her body, which he allegedly abandoned in a vehicle several miles from his home.

The Rev. Marita Harrell, a senior pastor at Connections at Metropolitan United Meth- odist Church, was discovered Wednesday along a secluded road near an industrial area outside Lithonia, Dekalb County police spokesman Lt. Shane Smith said Friday.

Investigators said she was stabbed by 27-year-old Christopher Devonta Griggs while ministering to him at his Panola Road home.

“He then transported her in a vehicle to the 1600 block of Coffee Road, where she was later discovered,” Smith said in an email. The burned-out vehicle was located about 5 miles from his house.

Church leaders and police said Harrell, a 57-year-old wife and mother of two, was simply trying to help her alleged killer when her life was taken.

“She was passionate about what she did, which was help- ing those who are lost and left out,” said the Rev. Dr. Michael T. Mcqueen, UMC’S district superintendent over its Fulton and Clayton County churches. “She was doing what she loved to do. That’s what makes this so tragic.”

Dekalb police took out warrants charging Griggs with murder and arson in Harrell’s slaying. He was arrested Thursday evening and is being held without bond at the Dekalb jail, online records show. Griggs’ first appearance hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. today.

“As you can imagine, this is a very sad day for us,” said Sybil Davidson, spokeswoman for the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Conference leaders held a call Friday morning and discussed ways to console congregants, friends and family members devastated by the pastor’s death. Grief counselors will be made available in the coming days and weeks, they said.

Meanwhile, tributes poured in on social media as news of Harrell’s killing was shared. Friends and former colleagues remembered her as a wonderful person and a “ray of sunshine.”

Harrell, a Chicago native, graduated from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and earned her Master of Divinity Degree in May 2014. She received her preaching certification the following year and was commissioned as a provisional elder in the church in June 2019.

She served as the pastor of Rivertown UMC from 2016 to 2018, and at The United Methodist Children’s Home from 2018 until she was appointed as the assistant pastor at Newnan Chapel UMC the following December.

She had been at Connections at Metropolitan, in Atlanta’s Pittsburgh community, since July 2020, her supervisor said.

Marita Harrell