Devout Christianity student allegedly kills fiancée, makes it look like suicide

Lee Moran
NY Daily News
Mon, 17 Feb 2014 08:29 UTC

A devout Christianity student learning about moral decision-making shot his fiancée dead then tried to make it look like a suicide, police said.

Charles Pittman, 21, allegedly gunned down long-term lover Olivia Greenlee as they sat inside her Toyota Corolla in Union University, Jackson, Tenn., parking lot last Tuesday night.

He is then accused of staging the scene to make it look like the music education student had killed herself.

Greenlee, also 21, was found dead inside the vehicle the following morning.

Cops claim they found a gun, belonging to a pal of Pittman that was taken without his knowledge, inside the car.

Pittman, from Milan, was arrested on Friday and charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence, reports The Jackson Sun.

The Union University senior's arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday in Jackson City Court.

Police have not yet revealed a possible motive for the alleged murder.

Pittman's Facebook profile shows him as a devoutly religious student, who quotes biblical passages and spiritual sayings to his 990 friends on an almost weekly basis.

In February 2011, he posted an update about his "best friend."

"(She) never fails to help me break my feelings of inadequacy and ... always helps me to strive to be the man of God that I should be!" he wrote.

He also wrote about a series of incidents in which he was apparently targeted for his religious beliefs and was dubbed a "Jesus Freak."

In January 2012, he wrote: "Three people just hit my truck with oranges and yelled 'Jesus Freak!!' I can smell the love ..."

The following day he posted a picture purportedly showing his burnt out van.

"To answer all the multiple messages at once, here is a picture of the truck. They came, set it on fire and yelled 'Jesus Freak!' as they ran," he wrote.

"I may not have a vehicle anymore, but I still have Jesus," he added.

The couple, who both attended the evangelical college, lived separately off campus. They got engaged in May 2013 and planned to wed in August.

News of Greenlee's death has shocked the private Christian liberal arts university and its 4,200 students, with hundreds gathering at its chapel Friday to pay tribute.

"Many of us are baffled, in disbelief, sad and grieving, yet grieving not without hope because of our faith and our confidence in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ," Union President Dr. David Dockery told the assembly, according to the Jackson Sun.

"The Bible tells us to weep with those who weep. And across campus this week, there have been plenty of tears," he added.

Hundreds of tributes have also been left for Greenlee, who had two sisters and graduated from Dyersburg High School in 2010, with friends saying she was "sweet" and "beautiful."

Reader Comments

gdpetti · 2014-02-17T13:52:47Z

Well...

Seems he gives the term 'Jesus freak' a bad name. Guess he doesn't believe in the Golden Rule or we would have already found his body in that same car... and what kind of a 'friend' uses his 'friends' gun to do this? Did he plan to frame his buddy as well? Is that in the bible? or does one need be a divinity student to learn such practices?

skepticle · 2014-02-17T16:39:34Z

Here's my version:

He is tired of being hassled for being over-religious. He's frustrated. So he stages the truck burn. That's a big story in any community, having your vehicle torched for your religious beliefs. Instantly, people around him go from snickering about his up-tightness to sympathizing for the persecution he's enduring. Suddenly he's popular and given attention, he feels powerful, because his plan worked and changed his day-to-day life upside down. As far as he's concerned, mission accomplished. Possibly, he's getting a lot more female attention now too. Maybe he didn't have too many options before. His girlfriend is still concerned about the event. Tries to get him to talk more about the night it happened and what he witnessed, try to help find the vandals, but he doesn't actually want to pursue it. She can tell something isn't right. At first he brushes it off. Finally she figures it out, or he breaks down and tells her. He pleads with her not to tell anybody. To wait. Give him time to figure it out or maybe she says something like "confess within a week or I will tell" since she's trying to help him be true to Jesus, not be a destructive, manipulative, monster. He tells her they'll talk about it together one night soon. He knows that if people find out, he will be outcast. It will show that his whole life of pretending that he lived for the ways of Jesus was a big lie, the mocking will be 100 times worse than before. But, remember, he just staged an event that gave him a short taste of a good life. He decides that the only way to save himself is to "fix it" again. He steals his friend's gun. He asks to drive out with his girlfriend to talk. He pleads with her again not to tell. It doesn't go well. Maybe she says she will leave him. He kills her. Sets up the scene, just a few more details than the last one.

That's my best guess, though I think a few details of this could change a bit and be just as likely. Maybe there was another girl once he became popular.

Did I mention he's a psychopath? But, a "full" one or a learned one? Obviously he had a deep dark side but who knows how much of it manifested because of the impossible web of lies he tangled himself in.

There are so many ways to analyze this. Over-dependence on some external idol (Jesus) without serious self work can make people think that they personally have no power and are corrupt, wrong, broken, compared to their ideal. It's an impossible thing to reconcile once somebody believes this. This self-identification of being so BAD can allow people to do horrible things when they're scared, feel trapped, or obsessing, because they never thought themselves any better than that anyways. It is telling that he says his girlfriend "always helps [him] to strive to be the man of God that [he] should be!" as if he is not already the man of God that he should be. He rightly questioned his own faith.

Just watched the video - seems somebody is trying to send a message.

Buffalo_Ken

Jacob's Ladder says "Hi!"

boli

Slightly . Too bad.

Demore

''A U.S. official said in a statement to Reuters that Washington takes seriously all accusations of corruption except their own.''

Western Media: "Genocide? What genocide? I don't see any genocide! This is just the Israelis defending themselves."

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Devout Christianity student allegedly kills fiancée, makes it look like suicide

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