Published: March 27, 2008 09:49 pm            

LEWISTON: Police searching for missing pastor

Craig Rhodenizer’s cell phone registered cell “pings” in an adjoining state

A Town of Lewiston resident has gone missing and nobody, including his wife, local police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has any idea what happened to him.

Craig Rhodenizer, a 48-year Town of Lewiston resident and pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Lyndonville, last spoke to his wife, Susan, at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday when he was taking his computer to be fixed at Best Buy in Amherst.

He never came home and isn’t answering his cell phone.

“We have no information as far as any sighting of him or his whereabouts,” said Sgt. Frank Previte of the Lewiston Police Department. The only information police have is that Rhodenizer’s cell phone registered several “pings” — when a signal is picked up by a cell phone tower — Wednesday night in an adjoining state.

The FBI is also involved in the investigation, Previte said.

“I’m extremely worried,” said Susan Rhodenizer, Craig’s wife of 20 years and an employee in the Niagara Falls School District. “This kind of behavior is outrageously uncharacteristic.”

The Rhodenizer family was set to take a work trip and vacation to Florida, leaving on Thursday morning. Their 9-year old son, Stephen, was ready for his first trip to Walt Disney World. But the trip will have to wait.

“He was looking forward to a nice trip and the weather,” Susan said. “I almost don’t know how to react.”

Susan said that her husband was an “outgoing and gregarious” person — the type who would stop on the side of the road to help a stranded motorist or chat with a cashier at a grocery store. She said she and her husband have a “wonderful marriage” and that they care deeply about each other.

“Everybody who knows him would say he’s a wonderful and caring person,” she said. “Unless this is a random act of violence or he had some hidden health issue, I really have no idea what else it would be.”

Rhodenizer has been the pastor at his church since 2004. Before that he worked as an associate pastor for a Rochester church.

Susan praised the Lewiston police and said she was grateful for friends from the Falls district who’ve been comforting her.

        

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