Congregants Were Abused and Shamed at Church Where Fatal Beating Occurred, Ex-Member Says
Source: New York Times
The founder and longtime pastor at Word of Life Christian Church shamed congregants from the pulpit, dredging up old sins and recounting them at Sunday services in humiliating detail, a former member said.
He demanded they redo the floors and fix the plumbing in his living quarters, day after day for hours, until they felt numb from sleep deprivation. Members who raised questions were put on church discipline and forbidden to speak to others.
And the founder, Jerry Irwin, taught hate, using racial slurs during sermons, according to the former member, Chadwick Handville.
In the aftermath of the brutal beating at Word of Life Christian Church in central New York that left one teenage congregant dead and his younger brother seriously injured this week, investigators have been trying to understand how that violent episode may have grown out of what some described as a church culture of secrecy and isolation.
“Everybody who’s gone there is a victim of abuse,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday. “This was a cult. This was not a church; I don’t care what words they use on the building. The spirit of that place was not freedom.”
He added, “It ruined a lot of lives.”
Mr. Handville, 47, a licensed massage therapist and writer who remains deeply religious, said he had been a member of Word of Life Christian Church for several years when Mr. Irwin returned to New Hartford, N.Y., in the early 1990s and retook control of the church, which occupies a three-story former schoolhouse. (Mr. Irwin had founded the church in the 1980s before he briefly moved away and ceded leadership, Mr. Handville said.)
Categories: Uncategorized
Police: Teen killed in N.Y. church assault wanted out
By Ray Sanchez, CNN
(CNN)The fatal beating of Lucas Leonard in the sanctuary of Word of Life Christian Church came after the teenager had “expressed a desire to leave” the secretive upstate New York church, New Hartford Police Chief Michael Inserra said Friday.
That wish, according to Inserra, apparently prompted a counseling session on the spiritual state of Lucas and his younger brother. During the sessions, the teens were beaten with a cord and Lucas suffered injuries so severe that emergency room doctors thought he had been shot, Inserra said.
On the day their parents, Bruce T. Leonard, 65, and Deborah R. Leonard, 59, are to appear in court on charges of first-degree manslaughter — a Class B felony — authorities disclosed a possible motive for a crime that has shaken a tiny village about 250 miles north of New York City. Four other church members were charged with second-degree assault, also a felony.
“The purpose of the counseling session obviously is a big part of this investigation,” Inserra told reporters. “The victim expressed a desire to leave the church and this is what may have initiated the session. We still have not concluded why the session turned so violent.”
Family members took Lucas, 19, by car Monday afternoon to a hospital in nearby Utica, where he was pronounced dead.
Lucas’ 17-year-old brother, Christopher, was hospitalized in serious condition after suffering blunt-force trauma injuries during the same church session, police said. It’s unclear why Christopher was beaten.
The younger brother, who had to be drawn out by authorities from a hiding area in the church, is alert and cooperating with investigators, Inserra said.
The assaults occurred after a Sunday-night service at the church. The so-called counseling session turned violent for some reason and the teens were repeatedly beaten through the night, according to the police chief.
Lucas was taken to a hospital on Monday after church members found he wasn’t breathing, police said. At the hospital, Bruce Leonard accused the victim of molesting children as a possible justification for his injuries — an allegation that Inserra said is unfounded.
Church members arrested after teen's death
6 photos: Church members arrested after teen’s death
After the assaults, seven children at the church were turned over to local child welfare authorities.
“These children were interviewed at length … and they were examined by medical professionals,” Inserra said. “There’s absolutely no indication of any sexual abuse to any of these children.”
Inserra added, “There is no evidence these brothers did anything. They are, at this point, true victims.”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/16/us/new-york-church-assault-case/index.html