Family of electrocuted Waco pastor sues contractor

The family of a popular Waco pastor who was electrocuted in front of his wife and 800 church members last year has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the electrical contractor that installed the church baptistry.

Jennifer Lake, widow of the Rev. Kyle Lake, pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, is seeking unspecified damages on behalf of herself and their three children against MP Electric Inc. of Waco in what their attorney calls a “very, very, very significant case with huge damages.”

The lawsuit alleges that MP Electric, 1890 Galaxy Road, was negligent in the design, assembly and installation of the church’s baptistry heaters, resulting in the electrocution death of 33-year-old Lake on Oct. 30 during a baptism.

MP Electric owner Mark Perry deferred comment on the lawsuit Wednesday to Dallas attorney Jim Grau.

“MP Electric is saddened by the death of Pastor Kyle Lake and the tragic loss experienced by his family and church members,” Grau said. “Because of the pending lawsuit, however, I cannot comment further at this time.”

Lake’s parents, David and Shirley Lake, of Tyler, also are plaintiffs in the suit, filed this week in Waco’s 19th State District Court by Ralph D. McBride of the Houston-based law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, which hired former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani last year to open its New York office.

McBride called Kyle and Jennifer Lake “the finest young couple you would ever want to know.”

“I have a very personal interest in the case in that these are people who have been impacted greatly by this tragedy,” McBride said. “But I have also known them personally for many, many years. So, therefore, it is something very near and close to me.”

According to the lawsuit allegations, the heating elements on both baptistry heaters reportedly overheated sometime before Lake’s death. The overheating reportedly caused severe damage to the heating elements inside the heater assemblies and exposed the electrical components to direct contact with the water passing through the heater pipes.

After this reported failure and damage to the heating elements, when the baptistry was filled with water and the heaters turned on, electrical current was allowed to pass into the water, creating “an invisible but fatal hazard for anyone entering in the baptistry,” the suit alleges.

On the morning Lake died, the church was packed and his wife was seated on the front row as he prepared to baptize a woman. The suit alleges that the water in the baptistry was “charged with a deadly and invisible electrical current.”

As he stepped into the water, Lake reached for a microphone.

“When his hand touched the microphone and cord, the metallic components of the microphone . . . gave the electricity in the baptistry an instantaneous path to ground — from the water, through Kyle’s body, through the microphone and microphone cable,” the suit alleges.

Lake cried for help and fell back into the water, the suit says. A witness, realizing Lake was being electrocuted, pulled the microphone cable from the floor plug. Lake died later that morning at a hospital.

The suit alleges that MP:

• Performed electrical work on the baptistry in 2003 without getting a city permit, without following National Electric Code requirements and without having the work inspected by city crews as required by law.

• Designed, assembled and installed the heater assemblies without a “thermal cutoff switch” to prevent overheating.

• Installed the heaters without warning or making provisions to prevent the most likely cause of overheating — activation of the heaters without enough water in the baptistry.

• Installed heaters without properly grounding them.

• Installed heaters without including a ground fault circuit interrupter, which the lawsuit contends would have cut the current to the heaters and prevented Lake from being electrocuted.

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