Minister's death leaves grief, questions

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By Laura Berrios

For the AJC 

Lavonia — He wanted to be serving the Lord on the day he died. And friends and family said this weekend they believe that’s what The Rev. Jonathan Ayers was doing Tuesday when he was killed.

AP Pastor Jonathan Paul Ayers, 28, right, and wife Abby are seen in an undated family photo provided by Matt Carpenter. Ayers, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, was killed by drug task-force agents this week during a probe that ended in gunfire at a Toccoa gas station.

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Days after the 28-year-old pastor of Lavonia’s Shoal Creek Baptist Church was shot and killed by undercover narcotics agents in nearby Toccoa, people in these two northeast Georgia towns are trying to make sense of what happened.

Ayers left a wife, Abby, who is 16 weeks pregnant with their first child. His congregation of about 50, still euphoric over a summer mission trip to Zambia, are mourning, too.

“It’s just heartbreaking — people are heartbroken about it,” said Lavonia native Sharon Johns, who didn’t know Ayers, but like most in this small town of about 2,000 people, had heard about him.

At the Shell gasoline station where the shooting happened, owner Joe Joseph said his regular customers have been coming in “all upset about it.”

“This is a small, friendly town, and I’ve never had any problems here. I didn’t know if it would hurt my business because people were scared to come into my store,” Joseph said.

He released a security camera tape that captured the shooting and has been shown on local TV.

Police said undercover officers with a northeast Georgia tri-county drug and prostitution task force followed Ayers to the gas station after he was seen dropping off a woman in town who had twice sold drugs to officers.

While the minister went inside to use the ATM, police said, the officers waited by the pumps in an unmarked black Cadillac Escalade. Once Ayers returned to his car, officers identified themselves and ordered him to open his door, police said. Ayers backed up and sped away while police shot at him twice, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. Ayers crashed a short distance away and died later following surgery at Stephens County Hospital in Toccoa.

The GBI is investigating and officers involved in the shooting remain on administrative leave, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said Sunday.

The woman, whose name has not been released, was being held at the Stephens County Jail on charges of cocaine possession and distribution, Bankhead said.

But Ayers was not a target of the drug sting, Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley said.

Toccoa resident Joy Guadalupe said the community is confused about what happened. “People don’t know what to believe so they’re drawing their own conclusions,” she said Saturday. “If he didn’t have anything to hide, then why did he run? Was he just spooked?”

Those who knew him said Ayers was a “squeaky clean kind of guy,” a dedicated Christian.

His best friend, Adam Gragg, said Ayers was known for helping people that others might shun as sinners because he believed they needed Jesus most.

“He always went to bad places, and he didn’t care what people thought about it,” Gragg’s wife, Brittany, said.

Gragg said he knew Ayers for 10 years. “There’s no way he could have been involved in anything illegal or lived a kind of secret life, and us not know about it.”

Roger Shirley (no relation to the sheriff), head deacon and lifelong member at Shoal Creek, believes his pastor drove the 20 miles to Toccoa to buy tires for his wife’s car, went to the ATM for cash to cover the purchase and was going to pick up his wife, who teaches at Stephens County High School. If he was with a woman, it was someone he was helping, Shirley said.

“They got the wrong person. I’d stake my life on it,” Shirley said.

When Jonathan and Abby moved into the Shoal Creek parsonage just over a year ago, the church had no more than 20 members. Ayers brought a fresh, contemporary style to the 100-plus-year-old church, a pews-and-hymnal type place with a cemetery across the street. The congregation grew to an average attendance of 50 or more, and Ayers baptized 12 new members during the year, Shirley said.

At his Friday afternoon funeral service, more than 400 people filled the church. Sunday, instead of a regular service, members gathered to talk, cry, hug, pray and forgive.

Forgiveness has been hard for Shirley, even though he’s sure his pastor has already forgiven. “I know I will eventually. But I can’t right now,” he said.