2 Admit to Cross Bearing Threats : Crime: Case takes on an unusual twist when boys confess to victims’ pastor but he refuses to reveal their identities to federal authorities.

Two teen-agers confessed to a minister that they erected a cross bearing hate messages and threats at the Lancaster home of a black family belonging to his congregation, but the pastor is refusing to identify the boys to the FBI.

Eleanor and James Pate discovered the cross, described by sheriff’s deputies as 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, in front of their Lancaster home on Jan. 9.

Henry Hearns, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Littlerock where the Pates attend services, said he received a call at midnight Sunday from a 16-year-old boy who admitted he was one of two youths who put the cross in the Tate’s yard.

“He said, ‘I’m scared to death. . . . I don’t know what to say or what to do, but I know you and you don’t know me and I feel that I can trust you and that I can tell you how bad I’ve been,’ ” Hearns said.

Hearns said the boy then identified himself and a 15-year-old companion and gave him their parents’ names, phone numbers and addresses. Hearns then invited the youths to a memorial service on Monday for Dr. Martin Luther King at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center,

Both boys attended the event and afterward they introduced themselves to Hearns and gave him three letters apologizing for what they had done and asked him to pass them on to the Pates, the congregation and a local newspaper.

“There was no question in my mind for them being sorry for what they had done,” Hearns said. “Their reason for doing it was strictly what they called a ‘big prank’ and they told me that they didn’t know if the people who lived at the house were black or white.”

Whatever the case, the incident prompted the FBI to launch an investigation.

“We have instituted a preliminary investigation into allegations of civil rights violations against the Pate family,” FBI spokesman John Hoos said.

Hoos declined to elaborate on the investigation, but he said the results would be forwarded to the Department of Justice in Washington, where it will be determined whether the Pates’ civil rights were violated or if the incident warrants further investigation.

Hearns said FBI investigators contacted him this week and asked him to name the youths, which he refused to do.

“I am a pastor, so when people talk to me I have to keep it in confidence,” Hearns said.

Hearns said that the day after the incident a group of about 70 congregation members gathered and prayed for help in finding who was responsible for erecting the cross.

“We asked the Lord to show us who it was and we said if he would bring them to us and they would confess and repent for what they had done, then we would talk to them and that we would be finished with the issue,” Hearns said.