Allentown man sentenced for killing pastor during sex assault at city rooming house

By Laurie Mason Schroeder
Morning Call
January 5, 2016

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-allentown-pastor-murdered-at-rooming-house-20160104-story.html

Allentown Police investigate a suspicious death at a rooming house at the corner of Washington and Silk Streets in Allentown, March 23, 2015. Photo by EMILY PAINE

ALLENTOWN — An Allentown man who admitted he used a hammer to kill a pastor in a city rooming house last year was sentenced Monday to six to 12 years in a state prison.

Jose Colon, 20, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in September, saying he lashed out because he woke up and found pastor Luis Herrera attempting to rape him.

'I just raged. I can't describe it,' Colon told Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg. 'I've never been through that before, that kind of rage.'

The killing occurred March 23 at 733 Washington St. Herrera, 47, rented a room at the home and was known in the community as a pastor who helped troubled youth, First Assistant District Attorney Steven Luksa said at Colon's plea hearing.

Herrera's obituary in The Morning Call listed him as a pastor at the Pentecostal Church of Christ in Allentown.

Colon told police he had known Herrera since he was a child and that Herrera occasionally gave him money for sexual favors. On the day of the killing, Colon told police, he was at Herrera's home because the pastor asked him to hang some pictures.

Colon told police he smoked synthetic marijuana and fell asleep in Herrera's bed alone, then woke up to the feeling of Herrera's touching him sexually. A struggle ensued, and Colon grabbed the hammer he had used to hang pictures and hit Herrera several times in the head and face.

Colon admitted he stole the pastor's car after fleeing the room. Herrera died a short time later.

In court Monday, Colon's mother told the judge her son saw his father abusing her from the time he was a baby until she fled with Colon and her other children to the United States from Puerto Rico, when Colon was about 8.

She said Herrera offered to help the family shortly after they moved to Allentown and seemed fixated on her son.

'From the first moment that I met him, I felt uncomfortable,' she said.

The judge read a psychologist's report, which said Colon suffered from several mental illnesses including bipolar disorder and explosive disorder.

"He was a young man who witnessed horrific abuse, who was broken, extremely broken," said Colon's attorney, Chief Public Defender Kimberly Makoul. "This man claimed to be a pastor, he met him at Bible study, and this is the man who violated him."

No one from Herrera's family attended the sentencing.

Luksa said the evidence supported Colon's version of what happened in the pastor's room, but that Colon was not justified in killing Herrera. He noted Colon had previous convictions for assaulting and threatening family members, and was on parole at the time of the slaying.

'This defendant has been on a path of destruction. He was going to hurt someone. It was just a matter of when,' Luksa said.

Voluntary manslaughter is an unlawful killing in which a person acts under a sudden and intense passion. The sentence was the result of a plea agreement.