RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Detectives on opposite sides of the United States are investigating the decades-old deaths of two women who were married to John Bridges, a retired Seventh-Day Adventist pastor.
Bridges, 86, who resides in Missouri, has not been arrested or charged with any crime.
Four of his wives have died since 1972, according to NBC News. But investigators in Kentucky and Oregon are investigating the deaths of his first and second wives, both of which were initially ruled accidental but later determined to be homicides.
Police in Gresham, Oregon, recently identified Bridges as a suspect in the 1993 death of his second wife, Astrid Bridges, though no charges have been filed in that case.
Meanwhile, police in Louisville, Kentucky, announced last month that they are actively investigating the 1972 death of Bridges’ first wife, Joyce "Mable" Bridges and looking to speak to anyone who has information or knew the Bridges family.
Gresham police have said they have been in contact with detectives in Louisville as the investigations into both homicides continues.
A spokesperson for the Louisville Metro Police Department told Newsweek that the department's investigation "remains open and active, and we are unable to comment on investigative details or information that has not been officially released."
Newsweek has contacted the Gresham Police Department for further comment via an email sent outside regular business hours.
Bridges' career appears to have taken him all over the country. As well as living in Oregon and Kentucky, articles reviewed by Newsweek show he apparently also spent time living and working in Arkansas, Tennessee and New England.
He was pictured with Joyce Bridges along with eight people he reportedly baptized in Linden, Tennessee, in a 1968 issue of Southern Tidings, a publication of the Southern Union Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists.
Almost 20 years later, he appeared to have moved with his family from Maine to Gentry, Arkansas.
He began serving as the senior pastor at Gentry Church in Arkansas in February 1986, according to an article in the April 1986 issue of the Southwestern Union Record, a monthly publication of the Southwestern Union of Seventh-Day Adventist churches.
The article said Bridges and his second wife Astrid had moved from the Northern New England Conference, where Bridges "had served as personal ministries, Sabbath school, and communications director." At the time of the article’s publication, Bridges had served the denomination for 22 years as a teacher, pastor, evangelist and departmental director.
Astrid Bridges was a registered nurse, according to the article.
The article also included a picture of John and Astrid Bridges with their three children Lenny, Julie and Monte. It noted that Julie was finishing her sophomore year at a school in Freeport, Maine, and would enroll at a school in Gentry that fall.
The family "enjoys snow and water skiing, camping, hiking, gardening, and music," the article said.
Joyce "Mable" Bridges died after her husband reported finding her "unresponsive" in their home on July 5, 1972, according to the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD).
She was transported to a hospital "by personal conveyance," where she was pronounced dead and then transported to a funeral home. "There was no initial police or EMS involvement," police said in a post on Facebook on July 24.
For decades, her death was considered accidental.
But that changed after police received new information and her body was exhumed in 2015 so an autopsy could be carried out. That autopsy determined that Joyce Bridges’ manner of death was homicide, police said.
The police department said her homicide is now "actively being investigated" by the department’s Cold Case Unit. "They are desirous to interview anyone who has information related to this investigation or knew the Bridges family," it added.
Authorities have not publicly disclosed how Joyce Bridges died.
However, Pam Prettyman, who lived near Bridges in Gresham, recently recalled to KOIN that neighbors had heard that she "mysteriously drowned in a bathtub" and that Astrid Bridges fell from a ladder.
A spokesperson for the LMPD told Newsweek on Thursday that it does not "have any additional information available for release regarding the circumstances of Ms. Bridges' death." The department also said it cannot confirm if anyone is considered a suspect or person of interest in connection with her death.
Astrid Bridges died on July 2, 1993. Officers and medical personnel responded to a call from Bridges, who reported finding his 45-year-old wife unresponsive just outside their home in Gresham, the Gresham Police Department said.
Officers and detectives had gathered physical evidence at the scene, interviewed Astrid Bridges’ family members and canvassed neighbors at the time, but the medical examiner’s office ultimately ruled her death was accidental.
In a Facebook post on July 9, the police department said the medical examiner’s officer reclassified her death as a homicide after reexamining the evident and her injuries. "With this change in status, the investigation into her death has been reopened," the post said.
The police department told KOIN in late July that they "consider John Bridges a suspect in the murder of Astrid Bridges."
But speaking to KGW8 last week, Detective Adam Wright stressed that the investigation is ongoing.
"While the evidence right now points at Mr. Bridges, we believe pretty strongly we’re not going to rush to judgment," he said. "We’re going to complete the investigative steps and follow all of the evidence wherever it leads."
In an update on July 30, the police department said its detectives had traveled to Missouri, where Bridges now lives, to conduct interviews and serve a search warrant at his...
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