Past Calls Ex-Minister Back to Texas : Courts: Walker Railey will return to face charges of the attempted murder of his wife in 1987. He professed his innocence in emotional sermon to Mid-Wilshire church.

It was no secret at Immanuel Presbyterian Church that Walker L. Railey had a past. If there was any doubt, it was dispelled one Sunday last fall when he delivered an emotional sermon to the Mid-Wilshire congregation.

“I live each and every day with a cloud over my head, but also the assurance that God is on the other side of the cloud,” Railey confided to a hushed audience of several hundred. “Therein lies my only hope.”

The once prominent Texas preacher, forced to surrender his ministerial credentials before moving to Los Angeles, was only five months into a new job as Immanuel’s church administrator. It had taken him four years to land church work after one of the most sensational scandals in recent Dallas history.

Railey’s wife had been choked nearly to death in the couple’s garage, and Railey--who was having an affair with another woman--was the prime suspect. Railey’s wife survived the attack but remains in a vegetative state. The couple’s two young children moved in with their godparents. Railey, disgraced and a self-described “fallen angel,” moved to California with his lover to start a new life.

On Wednesday, that new life came to an abrupt halt. Railey volunteered in a downtown Los Angeles courthouse to return to Dallas, where he was indicted Tuesday for the attempted murder of his wife.

“There are many people in Dallas who think I am guilty,” Railey told the Immanuel congregation last October, according to a transcript of the sermon. “There are also many others in Texas who believe I am innocent. The frustration for everybody, though, is that there is no clear answer.”

Authorities in Texas say Railey, 45, has long been the only suspect in the April 21, 1987, attack on his wife, Peggy, but only now have they collected enough evidence to convict the former senior pastor at Dallas’ First United Methodist Church.

Authorities would not say what new evidence had led to the grand jury indictment, but some speculation has centered on Railey’s son, Ryan, now 10, who witnessed the attack. According to earlier accounts of the case, Ryan has provided varied versions of who choked his mother, implicating his father but others as well.

Diane Yarrington, the boy’s legal guardian in Little Rock, Ark., said Wednesday that the boy did not know about his father’s arrest. She would not comment on any role the child may play in the upcoming trial.

In Los Angeles, news of Railey’s arrest has astonished members of Immanuel Presbyterian, a proud but struggling church that has no permanent pastor and is searching for a niche in the dramatically changing Mid-Wilshire area. Once 4,000 members strong, many of them well-to-do Hancock Park residents, the magnificent Gothic cathedral draws less than 400 each Sunday, many of them poor immigrants.

The Rev. Gary A. Wilburn, who hired Railey last year as his administrator, recently left the church, in part, some members said, because of his inability to attract enough new members and monetary pledges. Wilburn could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but a church spokesman said Railey’s hiring was approved unanimously by the church’s governing board.

In an interview last year with the Dallas Morning News, Wilburn said church members were “convinced of his qualifications and in the rightness of how a church should act in this regard.”

“They’ve committed to stand together with him in his position here,” Wilburn said. “They are convinced that he can answer any questions regarding his life and this case.”

The Rev. Vahe H. Simonian, who has been leading services on Sundays while the church searches for a new pastor, said Railey won over the governing board and the congregation with his honesty and willingness to talk about his past. He said there was no serious debate about hiring Railey.

“Churches are a little different than other organizations,” said Simonian, who has taught Bible classes at Immanuel for five years. “When somebody gets up and confesses (his sins), there is an element of forgiveness.”

A warm and caring person and a hard worker, members said, Railey was quickly welcomed into church life. He has taught Sunday school, helped develop community outreach programs and led adult classes on spirituality. This summer he has been teaching an eight-week course on “Healing the Hurt Within.” A church pamphlet on the session describes Railey as “uniquely qualified to teach such a course.”

But it was the sermon last October that won Railey the love and acceptance he had sought since leaving Dallas, members said. Entitled “Flirtations of the Spirit,” it was one of only a handful of homilies Railey has delivered at the church.

As a lay person, Railey spoke from the chancel, not the pulpit. Members recalled it as one of the most moving sermons in memory. “People were spellbound,” said parishioner Stephen Turner.

Railey used the occasion to profess his innocence in the attack on his wife, but also spoke candidly of his affair with a Texas psychologist. Church officials would not comment on the status of the relationship. The sermon also delved into the anguish of leaving his two children in Texas and the difficultly he faced in finding work in San Francisco, Long Beach and Los Angeles.

“On more than one occasion since 1987 I literally lived in my 1986 Honda, a much better automobile than it is a motel,” he said. “I have delivered GTE phone books in Huntington Beach and driven a forklift in Long Beach. . . . I have interviewed for countless numbers of positions, but despite my credentials, most employers have been frightened away either by my past or the possibility of the press showing up.”

Railey got his big break in March of last year when a Methodist pastor in Santa Ana invited him to preach on Easter Sunday. “It felt like climbing out of the tomb,” Railey said in the sermon. Less than a month later, he met Wilburn for three hours at a hotel restaurant in Century City, and within a few days, was interviewed by the church’s search committee.

“I would like nothing better this morning than to wrap up my story with a happy ending for all concerned,” he said. “But such is not the case. There is still a cloud over my head. It has been there four years. It may be there forever.”

After the service, the former pastor was rushed by members of the congregation. John Claerhout said Wednesday that “there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.” Others said it was a defining moment for Railey, who had told friends he needed to talk openly about his past, and the congregation, which wanted to hear his story.

“I don’t think I would have been a man equal to giving the sermon that he did,” said civil engineer Hayward Fong, who was named acting administrator.

As a sign of support for their embattled church colleague, several Immanuel parishioners and clergy from other churches joined Railey in Los Angeles Superior Court for his extradition hearing Wednesday.

Church officials said Railey’s job will be waiting for him when his trial is over in Dallas.

It is not clear who will teach the last session of his lecture course, scheduled for Sunday. The subject: “Healing Through Our Death.”

Times staff writer Amy Pyle contributed to this story.