Editor’s Note: The following story contains descriptions of violence that some readers may find disturbing.
The former children’s pastor and teacher accused of attacking his family and setting their house on fire earlier this month told police that he did it to hide the truth about the family’s financial situation.
A criminal affidavit obtained by the Post says that Matthew Richards admitted to police that he felt like a monster and told them, “I stabbed my kids, detective. I stabbed my wife.”
Richards faces five counts of attempted first-degree murder with premeditation and one count of aggravated arson with the risk of bodily harm.
What the affidavit says happened that night
On Saturday, September 16, just after 3:45 a.m., Shawnee Police were called to the Richards family home at 6602 Goode Drive following several 911 calls about a house fire and reports of someone chasing people with a knife.
One of the 911 calls was from a boy who said he was inside when his mother was being stabbed, and he was told to call the police.
“[The boy] explained that he ran into the garage to call 911 and heard an explosion,” the affidavit says. “Shortly after, his father entered the garage and began chasing him around with a knife.”
A neighbor, interviewed by police, said they heard banging on their front door and opened it to find the children.
According to the affidavit, the children told the neighbor that their father had gone room to room in the house and stabbed them.
Wife and five children were taken to hospital with injuries
The document says officers arrived to find three people with stab wounds outside the house.
Officers also reported smoke coming out of the house and the sound of an explosion from the garage. They said the garage doors were bowed out.
Richards’ wife and three of their five children were transported to area hospitals with life-threatening stab wounds.
Another child and the couple’s 19-year-old adopted son were both transported with non-life-threatening injuries.
The affidavit says Matthew Richards, 41, was still inside the house when police arrived, and they were able to order him to come outside, where he was taken into custody.
He was transported to an area hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, which the affidavit says originated in the basement around a pile of clothing and wood.
Richards told police the family was about to be evicted
After being released from the hospital, Richards told detectives that he had not been honest with his wife regarding their finances and that they were supposed to be evicted the same day.
“They had not packed anything, and no one in the family knew they were being evicted,” police say in the affidavit. “The defendant said that he formulated the plan to burn the house down earlier in the evening.”
Richards told police that he set the fire and then found a knife. He told detectives that he remembers being on top of his wife on the floor as they struggled over the knife, and she screamed his name.
“My dad just decided to pull out a knife,” one of the children is quoted as telling police as he showed officers a horizontal slash across his neck.
Richards told police that he doesn’t remember stabbing the children but does recall one of his sons asking him, “Dad, why do you have the knife?”
“The defendant admitted to having the thought that it would be better if they all died rather than for his kids to have to deal with the trauma of the finding out the truth and for his wife to find out the truth,” the affidavit says.
How are the victims doing?
The affidavit describes the multiple stab wounds to the children, including one with injuries to his chest and internal organs exposed from a significant laceration to the abdomen.
Another child suffered stab wounds to his colon, liver, neck and back.
Police believe the attack happened in multiple locations throughout the house.
An official from Crossroads Christian Church in Shawnee, where Richards had been the children’s pastor, told KMBC that all six of the injured Richards family members are expected to survive, though at least two remained hospitalized at the start of this week.
What happens next
Richards is scheduled for his next court appearance on Friday, September 29.
He’s being held at the Johnson County Adult Detention Center in New Century on $5 million bond.
Mike Frizzell is a freelance crime and fire reporter who runs Operation 100 News.
