MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) – A Florida pastor accused of molesting two Tennessee sisters has reportedly committed suicide.
Authorities say deputies responded to Rutherford County parking garage near the courthouse and found a man, identified as David Rowan, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Rowan’s trial started on November 29 and it is believed he took his own life while the jury was deliberating his fate.
Rowan was in Murfreesboro speaking at a local church in 2014 when the incident happened.
“While he was here in Murfreesboro he ran across these two young ladies and asked to take them out for a hamburger and a milk shake,” Detective Tommy Roberts said in 2018. “He ended up taking them to a local hotel here in the city of Murfreesboro where evidence showed that he molested the teenage girls.”
Rowan reportedly took the girls to the Imperial Inn on NW Broad Street, the same hotel damaged by a tornado in 2015. The hotel has since been renovated and the name and management has changed.
Tennessee detectives traveled to Florida in December 2017 and spoke with the pastor at his home and at his church next door. The grand jury later handed down an indictment and Rowan was arrested by U.S. Marshals.
In 2018, he was formally charged with rape, unlawful sexual contact and sexual battery by an authority figure.