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Often titled Agree or Delete or In God We Trust, this story has been circulating on the Internet since December 2004. It is an odd piece to classify in that the wrong murder has been attached to someone else's story. A Canadianized version of the So help me God e-mail (quoted as the second example above) concluded with the Do you believe in God? poll. Raytown, Missouri, has a population of 30,000 and lies about 8 miles southeast of Kansas City and 7 miles southwest of Independence. On 20 October 2004, an elderly couple who ran a Christian bookstore in that city was discovered murdered in their shop. Dead were John Caylor (79) and his wife Mildred Caylor (76). The couple had their throats cut by a robber who likely made off with less than $100, which was typically all that was carried in the cash drawer that was found empty. The victims had been married for 54 years and had run the store for 43 years. They were described by their friends as old-time Southern Baptists who focused on spreading the gospel and sometimes held tent revivals in their parking lot. One of their sons told how the pair would load up their van with musical instruments and visit nursing homes to perform. Their lives were about doing good, loving one another, and loving God. On Nov. 4, 2004 Kellen C. McKinney (27) was charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the deaths of the Caylors. His DNA being found on a bloodstained bag left near the cash register was the evidence that broke the case. When run through a DNA database, the sample matched McKinney, whose DNA was on file by virtue of his having served a prison sentence in Kansas. However, news accounts referred to the Caylors as having three sons but made no mention of any daughter. Moreover, although there had been an arrest in the case, at the time this piece was circulating the suspect had yet to be tried. All of this made the linking of this e-mail with the Caylor murders questionable. In fact, this item was part of an e-mail written by the daughter of different murder victims, Clifford Moody (79) and his wife Benice Moody (74), who were stabbed to death in their home in the Four Corners area Polk County, Florida, in 1996: Thomas Woodel was arrested for the killings and charged with two counts of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and armed burglary; a jury convicted him on all four counts, and Woodel was sentenced to death in January 1999. His death sentence was upheld on appeal in 2005, and it was during that appeals process that the Moodys' daughter gave testimony referenced in the e-mail quoted above. As to the question of whether courts still ask trial witnesses to swear they will tell the truth with an oath ending in the words So help me God, there is no definitive answer — the U.S. legal system encompasses courts of various levels (from municipal city and county courts to state and federal courts), all of which may have differing procedural practices for the swearing-in of witnesses. Many courts have dropped the once common practice of having a witness place his left hand upon a Bible while raising his right hand and swearing an oath to tell the truth; various courts have either dropped or retained the practice of prompting the witness to recite an oath to tell the truth so help me God. In most cases, courts have long since allowed witnesses who object to swearing an oath to God to simply affirm that they promise to tell the truth.
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