Ex-con now leads flock
By Martin Snapp
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

When members of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Albany met to choose a new pastor, a few were wary of James Tramel's background.

And with good reason. It's not every day a church selects a convicted murderer to be its leader.

"But as soon as you meet him, those fears just fall away," said Becky Osborn-Coolidge, a member of the search committee. "Besides, if you're a Christian, you have to believe in redemption."

Tramel's story of redemption took him from San Quentin, where at age 17 he was the prison's youngest inmate, to 16 years at Solano State Prison in Vacaville, where he was ordained a deacon and priest in the Episcopal Church, to his selection this summer as the interim pastor at St. Alban's. the rest