Angola police say Minnesota missionary Beau Schroyer was killed in a crime of passion orchestrated by his wife.
Beau, his wife Jackie Schroyer, and their five children have been in the country’s “remote bush” since establishing a mission there in 2021.
Angolan police said a security guard hired by the family stabbed Bo to death in his car on October 25 in the bush on the outskirts of Lubango, where the family lived in a walled compound.
According to the Angolan Police Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), Jackie and two others were arrested on suspicion of organizing the hit. Police say a third man is on the run.
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“There are no words,” Carl Gessel, a friend of the couple who lives in Detroit Lakes, Minn., told the Post. “I’m shocked this happened. I can’t believe she would do something like that.”
SIC spokesman Manuel Halaiwa said authorities had “strong suspicions” that Jackie was having an affair with Bernardino Isaac Elias, 24, a bodyguard recently hired by the family. Ta.
According to reports and police, Jackie promised $50,000 for the attack on her husband and helped plan the attack in a remote bush area near Hampata, where Bo was helping set up a farm. He reportedly gave the security guard $400 for the crime.
Meanwhile, Elias allegedly hired two other men to kill Beau: Isarino, a 23-year-old convicted felon nicknamed “Vin Diesel,” and Kayo Mselenga and 22-year-old Gelson Guerreiro Ramos, who remained at large Monday. , according to police.
According to police, three days before the murder, Jackie went with Elias to scout the crime scene. On the day of the murder, the men rented a car and drove to Hampata, 40 minutes from Lubango.
Police said the suspects pretended to have car trouble and called Bo for help. According to SIC, when the couple arrived, Jackie excused herself to go to the bathroom and went into the bushes.
Authorities said they had recovered the American-made knife used in the stabbing. SIC claimed it was a gift from Jackie to her alleged lover.
The Schroyers work for SIM USA, an evangelical Christian organization based in North Carolina that sponsors their youth ministry and has overseen missions around the world since 1893.
SIM said it had secured legal representation for Jackie, and spokesman Mark Bosher said no formal charges had yet been filed against Jackie.
Friends of the family contacted by the newspaper said they were shocked but did not want to say anything publicly until Angolan authorities had completed their investigation.
The State Department confirmed that an American was killed in Angola, but declined further comment. Angolan authorities could not be reached for comment last week.
Before moving to Angola in 2021, the Schroyers had never lived abroad. Despite concerns from family and friends after announcing they were preparing to go to Africa to launch a mission for children under the age of 18, the Schroyers continued to pursue their adventures and the world. I was excited about the challenge of helping poor children in one of the poorest countries.
“Bo told me God led him on a different path,” Gessel, 45, who works as a DoorDash driver and is a member of Bo and Jackie’s Detroit Lakes Church, told the Post. said in an interview.
Before heading to Angola, Bo worked as a local real estate agent and police officer.
“He said he was able to help a lot of people when he got to Angola,” Gessel said. “He was a caring guy, the kind of person who would take the shirt off your back.”
Mr. Gessel told the Post that Mr. Baugh had arranged to meet for coffee when he was in the United States in the summer, but they never met.
“I’ve never seen his wife do anything like that,” said Gessel, who has known the couple for several years. “It must be something else. But I don’t know if there was anything between there and here.”
Some remembered Bo and his wife as deeply religious people. Family friend Cleone Stewart said the family moved to Africa at Jackie’s urging.
“Jackie had a vision to help needy children, and Beau was right by her side,” said Detroit Lakes, an annual birding event hosted by the city of nearly 10,000 people. said Stewart, who worked with Beau at the bird festival. Stewart, the city’s tourism director, said Beau volunteered to lead many birding tours.
“He was a really good field trip leader and really good at explaining things,” Stewart said, adding that Beau could easily describe 1,000 different bird species. “He really knew birds.”
The Schroyers sold their $300,000 bungalow in Callaway, Minn., in 2021 and settled at a language school in Brazil, where they learned Portuguese, according to public records, Jackie said in a presentation before the family trip. said. She said her family had originally planned to go to Portugal to learn Portuguese, but the country did not allow foreigners into the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.
@mamashroyer/Instagram
“I can’t say anyone in my family is excited about this,” Jackie told the congregation at Lakes Area Vineyard Church in a video presentation in May 2021, adding that her mother and sister are not excited about this in their children’s lives. He added that he was deeply involved and worried about the children. The couple’s decision to leave their American home.
“Before I became a mother, I was looking at pictures of children in extreme poverty,” Jackie said. “It really devastated me. I needed to go and do something, and over the years I started praying to God. The worst thing in the world than a lost child is a lost child that no one is looking for. ”
By the time they returned this summer to solicit more donations from their congregation, the Schroyers confessed that living in Africa was a culture shock. First, their five children were “constantly battling malaria” and dealing with many difficult safety issues.
They admitted that they did not trust the security guards responsible for monitoring their premises in Lubango and had endured two break-ins while they were sleeping.
In a video presentation this summer, they said they were in the process of hiring new security guards.
“No matter how hard it is, we want to go back,” Jackie said in a video of her family’s church presentation in July, looking noticeably thinner.
She spoke passionately about setting up a soup kitchen that feeds 300 street children once a week outside their homes, and about a “breakfast club” that teaches children to memorize Bible verses in exchange for prizes.
Their 10-year-old son, Oakley, has made good friends with a 10-year-old Angolan boy, Bebezinho.
“He was the first one in the door,” Jackie said of Bevezinho, adding that the children they helped called the couple Aunt Jackie and Uncle Beau.
Beau seemed to be enjoying his time in Africa. He posted a photo of himself getting his hair cut at the modest barber shop where he helped the owner get his barber’s license.
He was also trying to establish a farm on the Hampata Plateau on the outskirts of the city, but was killed there. SIM had succeeded in persuading the Angolan government to hand over seven acres of land for the project, and Bo was organizing the cultivation of the land. He said he wants to build a well, but a safety fence needs to be built first.
“Probably overnight, every part of the well will be stolen,” he said, adding that he has built a 10-foot-tall safety fence covered in razor wire to keep thieves from entering the property. He added that he hopes to raise $150,000 to do so.
“Bo was not a perfect person,” Troy Easton, Beau’s pastor, reportedly said during a church service in Detroit Lakes last week.
“He was just like us. He didn’t always get it right. Just like you don’t, and I don’t either. But he believed in Jesus and trusted Him. …We can rejoice and take comfort in the fact that he will be with the King forever.”
Still, it’s hard to understand what Easton called “the unimaginable.”
“The heartbreaking news of Beau’s death and Jackie’s arrest in connection with it has overwhelmed us with grief, speculation and confusion,” he said.
SIM is a nonprofit organization that employs 4,000 people in 70 countries, according to its website. Information about the Stroers’ situation is being sent back to the congregation in Minnesota.
“SIM remains committed to supporting Bo’s pursuit of justice and is taking steps to ensure Jackie has appropriate legal representation,” the church organization said in a statement on its website. he said, adding that he was working with sister organizations in Angola.
The statement said Schroyer’s children are still in Africa and are “being well cared for.”
