The deaths of two women who were married to the same man more than two decades apart are now being treated as murder investigations.
Authorities in Oregon and Kentucky have recently changed the classifications of the deaths of Joyce “Mable” Bridges and Astrid Bridges from accidental to homicide. Joyce died in 1972, while Astrid died in 1993, and police in both states are now coordinating as they revisit the decades-old cases.
John Bridges, the 86-year-old pastor who was married to both women before their deaths, has not been arrested or charged. Gresham, Oregon, police have said, however, that he is considered a suspect in Astrid’s death.
“At this time,” Gresham Police Detective Adam Wright said, according to WDRB, “we consider her husband at the time, John Bridges, to be a suspect in her murder.”
John did not immediately return a request for comment, and he has not publicly addressed the investigations.
On July 5, 1972, Joyce Bridges was found unresponsive at home and was later pronounced dead at Pewee Valley Hospital in Kentucky, Louisville Metro Police said in a recent Facebook post.
“There was no initial police or EMS involvement,” Kentucky police wrote in the July 24 post. “Based on information received by police, Mrs. Bridges was exhumed in 2015 for an autopsy. The conclusion of the autopsy determined the manner of death was homicide.”
John later married Astrid Bridges. Nearly 21 years to the day after Joyce’s death, on July 2, 1993, Astrid was found unresponsive outside the couple’s home in Oregon, according to the Gresham Police Department.
“Investigators are continuing to pursue leads regarding the murder of Astrid Bridges.” Gresham police wrote on Facebook July 29. “Over the past several weeks detectives served a search warrant at John Bridges’ current residence in Missouri.”
A Louisville police spokesperson told Oxygen that it could not provide additional information.
“While the evidence right now points at Mr. Bridges, we believe pretty strongly, we’re not going to rush to judgment,” Gresham Police Detective Adam Wright told KGW. “We’re going to complete the investigative steps and follow all of the evidence wherever it leads.”
Wright said authorities have talked to John’s family, who are “understandably conflicted about this information.”
Police don’t consider John a danger to anyone, said Wright, adding, “other than maybe a current wife.”
When authorities began investigating Astrid’s death, John’s fifth and current wife Janice Grote “kicked him out,” she told NBC News.
“I am not afraid of him and I don’t think he would come back to hurt me,” his wife of five years told the outlet. “But I don’t want to sleep with a man who is under suspicion of murder. I don’t want to be stupid.”
As for John’s other wives, his third spouse died in 2011 of “hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” according to a coroner’s report obtained by NBC News. While his fourth wife died in 2024 of cancer.
“It wasn’t until the police came here from Oregon that I found out they might have been killed,” Grote said of Astrid and Joyce. “John has a lot of very good qualities … But I’ve come to realize that the truth doesn’t come easy for John. He didn’t tell me the whole truth about his marriages.”
Grote called John’s past relationships “red flags.”
“That’s where I goofed,” she told the outlet. “I should have listened to the Holy Spirit. I would not be in this position if I had listened to the Holy Spirit.”
