Police charge man with killing minister
The Layman Online, March 15, 1999
HARTFORD, Conn. – A Presbyterian minister who was gay but admired by many who strongly disagreed with his views on ordination was murdered at his condominium in Hartford recently.
The Rev. Thomas E. Otte, 56, was stabbed to death. Hartford police arrested Felix Pagan, 27, a felon whom they say Otte befriended. Pagan was charged with murder and jailed under a $1 million bond.
Otte was active with Presbyterians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns and More Light Churches, a national movement that wants the Presbyterian Church (USA) to end its constitutional prohibition against the ordination of people who engage in sex outside of marriage.
He was an observer at the recent trial before the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Southern New England Presbytery, which ruled that First Presbyterian Church of Stamford, Conn., may install a gay elder.
Otte, a 1972 graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, served seven years as the part-time pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Holyoke, Mass., resigning that position in 1998. His wife, Wilma Otte, an elder at Hartford’s First Presbyterian Church, died of cancer in 1997. Since her death, Otte was openly gay and served as a counselor and chaplain at various institutions.