Killer ‘staged’ pastor’s body, police say

Police would not elaborate, however, on how the body of Carol Daniels, 61, was positioned Sunday inside Christ Holy Sanctified Church in Anadarko. Authorities have said they are not ruling out the possibility that the killer specifically targeted a pastor or a church.

Investigators are also reviewing video surveillance tapes from a nearby convenience store for clues in the brutal killing. A preliminary autopsy found Daniels died of “multiple sharp force injuries,’’ and a veteran local prosecutor described the crime scene as “the most horrific’’ he’s ever witnessed.

A visitor who arrived at the church shortly before noon Sunday saw Daniels’s car but found the door to the church locked, District Attorney Bret Burns said yesterday. The person walked to the Anadarko police station and notified officers, who discovered Daniels’s body. Burns did not identify the visitor.

Law enforcement officials have been tightlipped about details of the crime or a possible motive, but met with pastors in Anadarko on Wednesday and warned them to take security precautions at their buildings.

Jack Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University, said the fact that Daniels’s body was staged is highly unusual.

“The killer wants the notoriety,’’ Levin said. “He knows that by staging the victim’s body, that it will freak out a population of people, terrify them.’’

Levin, who has written books on serial killings and hate crimes, also said posing bodies is a ritualistic “signature’’ that can be used to connect several crimes to a single perpetrator. “The killer poses the bodies because he wants credit,’’ Levin said. “He intends to do it again.’’