Duplin murderer dies at age 79
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on September 8, 2016 9:42 AM
A former Mount Olive preacher who served 23 years in prison for the 1981 stabbing and beating death of a Duplin County businesswoman has died.
Clarence Sheldon Howard, 79, died Aug. 17. The obituary did not list where Howard was living, but it did carry a Raleigh dateline.
Howard was convicted of second-degree murder in the April 21, 1981 death of Inez Jernigan, 53.
Investigators said Mrs. Jernigan, who lived alone, had been beaten in the head with a chair. She also suffered stab wounds to the neck from a paring knife.
A placemat covered Mrs. Jernigan's face when her body was found on the kitchen floor of her home on N.C. 11 near Kenansville.
Howard, who was 44 at the time, had borrowed $20,000 from Mrs. Jernigan and, according to court testimony, had been unable to repay the debt.
He went to Mrs. Jernigan's home on April 21, 1981, where he killed her after she pressured him for payment.
Howard attempted to make it look like a break-in, taking some of Mrs. Jernigan's jewelry which he buried behind Northeast Original Free Will Baptist Church in Mount Olive, where he was pastor at the time.
The jewelry was later recovered by law enforcement officers
Howard was arrested while in Goldsboro in early October 1981, and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in November 1981.
He was sentenced in January 1982 to life in prison.
The N.C. Parole Commission granted parole to Howard in May of 2005.
A native of Newport, Howard had taught religious studies at Mount Olive College and was pastor at Northeast Original Free Will Baptist Church, Mount Olive.
He also had been pastor of the church Mrs. Jernigan had attended.