A distance runner in his college days, he still ran more than five miles a day. She also had a master’s degree, in mathematics, and she began teaching and working on a second degree in computer math at Emporia State University. Sandy was a small, high-energy 32-year-old with short brown hair. Within a year, he had the church pulsing with activity-a new day-care center, softball and volleyball teams, and new families coming every Sunday. Bird, the 32-year-old son of a minister, had two master’s degrees in theology and abundant charisma and energy. Bird’s assignment was to lead a congregation for the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Sandy and Tom Bird moved to Kansas from Arkansas in 1982. Serving a life sentence, he has a record as an exemplary inmate, but he was turned down for parole in 2001, partly because, the board said, “he denies responsibility for the crime.” Tom Bird.įOR THE RECORD:The article “Who Killed Sandy Bird?” (May 2) about the murder of a preacher’s wife in Kansas 21 years ago implied that she died “the night of July 17, 1983.” In fact, her body was found the morning of July 17.īird has fought unsuccessfully for a new trial.

It ended with the first-degree murder conviction of her husband, the Rev. During the next two years, residents of that tranquil Midwest town watched an absorbing gothic tale unfold-a tale of adultery and religion, of murder and money. Early Sunday morning hikers came upon the body, floating in shallow water.īut the death of Sandy Bird wasn’t an accident.

Her station wagon ran off a gravel country road and overturned in the Cottonwood River outside Emporia, Kansas. Two decades ago, on a warm summer night, the wife of a minister and mother of three died under heartbreaking circumstances.

Tom bird emporia ks