Minister Denies Marrying Crash Victims

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Baptist minister, calling it a “misunderstanding” spawned by grief, said Wednesday he did not perform a marriage ceremony at the burial of a young engaged couple killed in a small plane crash.

“It wasn’t really a wedding ceremony,” said the Rev. Rayburn Blair. “There was no exchange of vows, and there was no civil ceremony. It was a reflection of their commitment to each other to be married.”

“Basically, it’s a misunderstanding,” Blair, pastor of the Temple Baptist Church, said of published reports that he married Mike Ellis, 27, and Toni Goff, 23, at their grave side Monday.

“I said they were committed to each other to be married, and engaged and that now they would spend eternity together as brother and sister in Christ,” Blair said.

Blair said that he had given premarital counseling to the couple Oct. 22, two weeks before the small plane piloted by Ellis plunged into pine woods south of Tallahassee, killing both Ellis and Goff.