As a skinhead and Goth in Washington, Pa., Philip Crouse was the one others feared.
“He would come to youth group in a black trench coat,” childhood friend Shiloh Ryan-Anikienko said Wednesday morning. “He really embraced being the Goth scary guy.”
But Wednesday morning at his memorial service, those who knew him honored him as a selfless missionary who wanted to find homes for orphans and teach the Gospel to people in foreign countries.
At 24, his life had come full circle before Matthew Murray gunned him down along with Tiffany Johnson, 26, at the Arvada missionary training center Youth With a Mission early Sunday morning.
Murray later killed sisters Stephanie and Rachael Works, ages 18 and 16, during a shootout at New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
A service to remember the two missionary victims was held Wednesday morning at Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada.
Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien spoke at the service, “A Celebration of Life for Tiffany and Philip.”
The Rev. Peter Warren and Tom Hallas of Youth With a Mission and Pastor George Morrison also spoke. A slide show of both youth leaders was shown.
Crouse had always been unpredictable, Ryan-Anikienko said.
“You never knew what Phil was going to do next,” Ryan-Anikienko said of Crouse about his teen years in Pennsylvania. “Phil was a character.”
Her father was the pastor of the church Crouse attended.
“He absolutely hated church, but he loved to go to see the girls,” Ryan-Anikienko said.
He experimented with drugs and seemed miserable.
But shortly after Crouse moved to Alaska, he called the Ryan family and seemed like a different person who spoke about his love of Jesus Christ, she said.
“He went from the dark lord from the abyss to this angel of light,” Ryan-Anikienko said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
