P
eople who heard Anthony Hopkins' sermons in rural towns around the South sometimes called him a psychic or even a prophet. Yet a prosecutor told jurors that Anthony Hopkins terrorized his wife and young children, isolated them and used the Bible to manipulate them.
"He was the supreme commander of his own little army," said Assistant District Attorney Jill Phillips.
After deliberating for 1 1/2 hours, the jury in Mobile also found 39-year-old Anthony Hopkins guilty of rape, sodomy, incest and sexual abuse of a child between the ages of 12 and 16.
Hopkins was arrested in 2008 while preaching at a revival on charges that he killed 36-year-old Arletha Hopkins. Authorities said they were led to the body of his wife by a teenage relative that Hopkins had abused and impregnated.
Investigators say Hopkins killed his wife in a violent fight in 2004 after she caught him having sex with the teenager. They said he then stuffed the wife's body into a freezer at the Mobile home he shared with her, the couple's six children and two of her children from a previous relationship.
Hopkins showed no reaction on Friday as deputies handcuffed him and led him from the court.
Children who grew up in his home and who had testified against him stood in front row and hugged each other and cried as the verdict was read.
"There is nothing pleasing about any of this, it is all very disturbing," Ashley Rich, the prosecuting attorney, said afterwards. "A number of children have been harmed and the chances of them fully recovering are slim."
Defense attorneys left court without answering questions.
Hopkins told jurors Friday that he came home on a December evening in 2004 and found his wife dead on the floor, with the youngest of her eight children, an month-old infant, beside her.
"I was shocked and I began to shake her, and I was like 'Letha, Letha are you alright?' I began to shake her, tilt her head back and do CPR," Hopkins testified.
