CLARKESVILLE, Ga. (BP)–Nancy Schaefer, 73, a conservative activist and former officer of the Georgia Baptist Convention, and her husband Bruce, 74, died March 26 of gunshot wounds in their north Georgia home.
A daughter discovered the bodies in the bedroom of their home in Habersham County.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had ruled the deaths a murder-suicide in which Bruce Schaefer allegedly killed his wife, then himself.
However, at least one friend of the Schaefers has questioned the murder-suicide theory. Garland Favorito, founder of Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA), circulated an 11-point, two-page bulletin via the Internet stating it is “more obvious” that the case is a “murder made to look like suicide.”
Favorito cited the Christian faith and pro-life beliefs of the Schaeffers and the fact that Nancy Schaeffer had been delving into alleged corruption in family & child services agencies. Favorito’s bulletin listed a link to YouTube where Schaeffer had been voicing her various concerns: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f.
The Schaefers were members of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Toccoa, where funeral services will be held March 31.
Schaefer served as first vice president of the GBC in 1991 and, on the national level, for eight years as a trustee of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. She has also served as president of the Georgia chapter of the Eagle Forum.
Schaefer lost her Senate seat in 2009 after representing Georgia’s 50th district for two terms. She previously had been a candidate for Georgia governor, lieutenant governor and mayor of Atlanta.
In 1986 she founded Schaefer Family Concerns, Inc., a nonprofit foundation dedicated to issues such as display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings and opposition to abortion, according to the Atlanta newspaper. Sadie Fields, who chairs the Georgia Christian Alliance, described Shaefer as “a stalwart of conservative causes in Georgia.”
–30–
Reported by the staff of Baptist Press and The Christian Index, newsjournal of the Georgia Baptist Convention.
