Paul Carlock is something of a renaissance man. The alleged pedophile has worked as a corrections
officer, a minister, a police officer, a state employee, and a clown, and
two years ago he even tried his hand at reporting for Illinois Times.
Carlock, referring to himself a freelance writer and
photographer, submitted a full résumé and a short feature
about Springfield’s Asbury United Methodist Church — the church
he and his wife, Mary, attended before allegations surfaced in October that
he possessed child pornography and traveled to the Philippines to engage in
illicit sexual conduct with minors.
In the unsolicited article, which was never
published, Carlock wrote: “Their mission is clear, to ‘make a
difference.’ And they are. Several times each week voices of dozens
of children can be heard echoing the halls of Asbury. While their bodies
are fed a well-balanced meal, their minds, hearts, and emotions are also
being nourished. Here they encounter adults who love them, and show that
love in tangible ways.”
Esther Lael, chairman of the church’s
administrative counsel, was quoted in Carlock’s piece but says she
doesn’t remember his writing the article. Lael, who says she never
heard of any misconduct on Carlock’s part, briefly described Carlock
to a reporter. “He’s really different, a little
eccentric,” Lael says.
The Rev. Bill Burton, the congregation’s
minister, remembers Carlock as a regular, substantial member at his church
and maintains that no one has even suggested that Carlock’s behavior
was inappropriate.
“There’s another side to this whole thing
that I suppose will be brought out in due process,” he says. “I
think the charges are atrocious that I’ve read about and heard about
through the media.”
In his résumé, which is eight pages
long, Carlock rattles off the jobs that he’s worked since his 1968
graduation from Lanphier High School, many for only short periods. For the
first 15 years, it seems, he gravitated toward jobs in which he worked with
or near children.
In August 1970 Carlock got on board with the Illinois
Department of Corrections as a youth supervisor at what was then the DuPage
State Boys School in Naperville. In his résumé Carlock states
that he supervised 90 to 95 boys ages 9 to 16 and worked as one of the
facility’s assistant dormitory managers.
In June of 1973, Carlock left IDOC to accept a job as
a juvenile officer with the Springfield Police Department. His former
supervisor, retired Sgt. Tom Conway, confirms that Carlock passed a background check and says
that he was mainly involved with follow-up investigations and
investigations into allegations of child abuse and neglect. Conway recalls Carlock as a wholesome, religious man
who was concerned about children’s welfare. He says that Carlock, who
didn’t curse and wasn’t gruff like other police officers, left
the department in 1978 to become a minister.
“We’ve arrested people in religious
professions for child abuse, and of the people that we have arrested he
certainly did not fit that category,” Conway says. “They would
always have kids hanging around them, offering them gifts — that
didn’t seem to fit Paul’s character.”
Over the next four years Carlock worked as a minister
in three different Nazarene churches: First Church of the Nazarene in
Collinsville; Trinity Church of the Nazarene in Colorado Springs, Colo.;
and Rosewood Heights Church of the Nazarene, in East Alton. In the
résumé Carlock lists ministry to children and youth as his
primary responsibilities in Collinsville and Colorado.
Dr. Jim Spruce, district superintendent of the
Illinois District of the Church of the Nazarene, says that no one in the
church in the 1980s was concerned with screening employees who worked with
children. Now, he says, it’s a different world, and would-be
ministers are asked specific questions about criminal behavior and trouble
with previous jobs and must submit their driver’s-license numbers for
police checks.
Although Carlock’s résumé states
that he left the Nazarene Church because of marital problems, Spruce
suggests that his departure may have been caused by different reasons. He
says that the record indicates that Carlock was forced to voluntarily
surrender his credential as a minister instead of becoming inactive and
leaving the church on his own.
“That is never a positive thing —
something was apparently happening or about to happen that caused him to do
that,” Spruce says. “Ministers don’t just quit; they have
to have some reason.”
Spruce says the Nazarene Church has a book of
discipline, called the Manual, that lists specific guidelines for how and
why a minister should surrender his credential, none of them positive. When
such an issue arises, the minister is confronted by a supervisor and then
subjected to a church trial.
“Voluntarily surrendering a credential means he
took that option rather than facing a trial,” Spruce says. “A
trial would have forced the issue, and he was wise enough and good enough
not to go that route.”
In November of 1982, Carlock returned to work as a
juvenile officer with the South Roxana Police Department. Dennis Carpenter,
who was then an officer and is now chief of the department, confirms that
Carlock only worked part-time for a year. He says that much has probably
changed in the 25 years since he knew Carlock, but he admits that he is
surprised by the charges. He recalls Carlock as a professional police
officer who was also dedicated to his religious beliefs.
From January 1984 to August 1985, Carlock worked in
School District 186’s Lawrence Adult Center, as well as with SCOPE,
an after-school child-care program. He also substitute-taught elementary,
junior-high, and high-school classes in the district and notes on his
résumé that he worked in Roxana and Bethalto schools.
According to the résumé, Carlock then
ceased direct work with children until he founded Klutzo and Smilee Clown
Entertainment in 1996 and, in the past few years, began working in area
daycare centers.
From 1985 until when he submitted his
résumé to Illinois Times, Carlock was employed by IDOC, this time as a
corrections-academy trainer, and then worked in state positions with the
Illinois Department of Public Aid and the Illinois Department of Revenue. He worked part-time as a patrolman with the Southern
View Police Department, as chief of police with the Grandview Police
Department, as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Illinois at
Springfield, and as an instructor at Lincoln Land Community College.
He also owned his own photography studio, Priceless
Moments Photography, and a private marriage- and family-counseling
practice, Covenant Counseling Center, and operated a criminal- and
juvenile-justice consulting-services center.
Carlock was arrested on Oct. 9 after federal
authorities discovered numerous photographs of nude boys on his laptop
computer after he made a trip to the House of Joy orphanage in the
Philippines. In a later search of his home, authorities also found 21
movies containing child pornography. In an indictment handed up on Nov. 7, he was charged
with two counts of coercion or enticement of a minor and with one count of
possessing material containing child pornography.
Carlock, who is still in
custody, was arraigned Wednesday. His attorney, Robert Andre Alvarado, was unavailable
for comment.
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2007.
