Janice Sue Grote said she made her 86-year-old husband leave after police from Oregon arrived in Missouri with questions about two women who had once been married to him.
John Bridges, a pastor who has been married five times, is now tied to separate police reviews in Oregon and Kentucky after the deaths of his first two wives were revisited decades after they were initially treated as accidents.
Grote, 65, told NBC News she did not know investigators believed the women might have been killed until the Gresham Police Department served a warrant at the home she shared with Bridges.
“I am not afraid of him, and I don’t think he would come back to hurt me,” Grote said.
But she remarked that she was not willing to keep sharing a bed with a man facing that kind of suspicion.
“But I don’t want to sleep with a man who is under suspicion of murder. I don’t want to be stupid,” she continued.
“It wasn’t until the police came here from Oregon that I found out they might have been killed.”
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The Oregon investigation focuses on Astrid Bridges, his second wife. John Bridges reported finding her outside their Oregon home more than 30 years ago, and neighbors believed she may have slipped while working near the gutters.
Authorities originally treated Astrid’s death as accidental.
Gresham Police have since reopened the matter as a homicide case, and on July 29, Bridges was identified as a suspect.
Detective Adam Wright of the Gresham Police Department told WDRB that investigators now view him as the suspect in Astrid’s killing.
“We consider her husband at the time, John Bridges, to be a suspect in her murder,” Wright said.
In Kentucky, investigators are looking again at the death of Joyce “Mable” Bridges, his first wife.
Joyce died in 1972 after John Bridges took her from their home to a hospital, where she was declared dead. The case did not involve police or EMS at the time, and her death was also treated as an accident.
That conclusion changed after her body was dug up in 2015. A later autopsy determined Joyce’s death was a homicide, according to police.
Louisville Metro Police have not named Bridges as a suspect in Joyce’s death, but the department has reclassified the case and is asking the public for help.
The renewed attention on Bridges’ first two wives has also drawn questions about his later marriages, though police have not opened criminal probes into those deaths.
Tama Jo Bridges, his third wife, died in 2011. A coroner’s report viewed by NBC News listed hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease as her cause of death.
His fourth wife, Gail Hope Mizell, died in Texas in 2024. Grote told NBC News that Mizell had been diagnosed with cancer.
Grote married Bridges five years ago and said she now believes his marriage history should have warned her.
“That’s where I goofed,” she told NBC News. “I should have listened to the Holy Spirit. I would not be in this position if I had listened to the Holy Spirit.”
A separate pastor case in Florida brought another set of allegations involving a teen boy, HIV exposure and a sheriff who tore into the accused preacher from the podium.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Timothy Chaneyfield, 42, who preaches at St. James United American Free Will Baptist Church, admitted after his arrest that he picked up a 14-year-old at least three times and had sex with him at Chaneyfield’s Eagle Lake home.
The sheriff said the case began with information from Instagram about suspected improper contact between Chaneyfield and a minor.
“Instagram was principal in stopping a child pedophile from sexually battering children while being HIV positive. If all other social media online did exactly what Instagram did, we could stop this,” Judd said at a press conference.
Judd said Chaneyfield confessed after he was taken into custody.
“He confessed,” Judd said. “He confessed that he picked up this 14-year-old child on at least three different occasions, took him to Timothy’s home in Eagle Lake, where he engaged this child in sex.”
The sheriff added that Chaneyfield was HIV positive and had unprotected sex with the teenager without disclosing his status.
“That wasn’t it. That wasn’t all. Timothy is HIV positive. He failed to tell this 14-year-old child that “I’m HIV positive,” and he had unprotected sex,” Judd said.
The teenager was given medication in an attempt to prevent infection, including what Judd called an “HIV cocktail.”
Investigators also found another alleged victim, a 26-year-old who had sex with Chaneyfield and is now HIV positive.
Judd accused Chaneyfield of being a “super spreader” and said investigators believe there are likely more victims.
“He was very aggressive and very adamant about having sex with apparently adults or children,” Judd commented.
Chaneyfield faces three counts of lewd battery against a child, failing to disclose his HIV status, traveling to meet a minor, computer-related charges and possession of marijuana.
Judd denounced him as both a predator and a marijuana user.
“This is a dope-smoking preacher right here in front of you,” Judd declared. “He’s a dope-smoking pedophile preacher.”
“Jesus don’t like that,” he continued. “And now he’s locked up in the county jail, where he should be… He’s an evil man.”
Judd said authorities tried to arrest Chaneyfield while he was in Baltimore, Maryland, but received “zero assistance” from local airport enforcement.
“I don’t expect any more than that, that place is a trainwreck anyways,” Judd remarked about the airport and the Maryland Department of Transportation Authority police.
Police arrested Chaneyfield when he arrived in Orlando. He was first booked into the Orange County Jail before being transferred to Polk County.
Judd said Chaneyfield did not show remorse.
“This is what he does. He sexually batters children,” the sheriff added.
Chaneyfield allegedly claimed he was taking HIV medication and had told the child about his status on social media. Judd said investigators found nothing backing that up, and the teenager denied being told.
“Well, we see zero evidence of that,” Judd said.
“He’s nasty, this guy is nasty,” Judd continued. “He’s a menace to society, and he’s proven that.”
