American paedophile pastor of Texas accused of child sex crimes has trial date set

Ronnie Allen Killingsworth is indicted on six counts of alleged sex crimes against children involving three different victims over eleven years

By Edward Era Barbacena 

 A date has been set for the trial of a dirty old white man and a paedophile pastor of a Wichita Falls church charged with six counts of indecency with a child.

Presiding Judge Meredith Kennedy has ordered the trial of Ronnie Allen Killingsworth, 78, of Wichita Falls, to be specially set to begin on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. Before Killingsworth’s case goes before a judge and jury, a pre-trial hearing is set to occur on Thursday, April 25, 2024.

The case was transferred to Judge Kennedy in October 2023 after 30th District Court Judge Jeff McKnight voluntarily recused himself since he’d previously represented one of the potential witnesses as an attorney.

Bill Vassar, Tarrant County’s Assistant Criminal District Attorney, has been appointed as the special prosecutor for Killingsworth’s trial. Proceedings will remain in the 78th District Court in Wichita County.

While released on bond, Killingsworth is prohibited from having any contact with the victims. He is also prohibited from going to the victims’ home, daycare, or school. Killingsworth is also required to provide a specimen of DNA to local law enforcement.

Killingsworth is the longtime “Pastor-Teacher” of Rephidim Church, a non-affiliated congregation located on Allendale Road in Wichita Falls.

It is unclear at this time whether or not the charges are connected to the church, its facilities, or members of its congregation.

Killingsworth is no stranger to controversy. In 1998, he was a vocal leader, along with other local pastors at the time, in a protest to ban two children’s books depicting parents in homosexual relationships from the Wichita Falls Public Library.

The Wichita Falls City Council eventually passed an ordinance banning the two books, entitled “Daddy’s Roommate” and “Heather Has Two Mommies”; however, the ordinance was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in September 2000.

Rephidim Church was the subject of local controversy in the Clay County town of Thornberry in 1999 when a church retreat with 30 cabins and a meeting hall sprung up seemingly overnight in a valley just outside the small community.

A recent search of the area revealed no signs that the retreat is still maintained. A Google Earth search also revealed many of the cabins are no longer there.

In January 1999, several members of the church told reporters with KFDX and KJTL that they’d decided to leave the church due to the teachings of Killingsworth, claiming they contained “the tell-tale signs of a cult.”