The witness heard the pastor at the secretive Word of Life Christian Church in New Hartford tell the congregation Sunday night that someone among them was practicing witchcraft, the paper reported.
Lucas Leonard, 19, who was fatally beaten, said identified himself the one, and that he wanted church elders to die and that he had considered making a voodoo of a church leader, according to the Times.
The paper cited as its source a statement Word of Life deacon Daniel Irwin, 24, gave to the authorities investigating Leonard’s death. The statement has not been made public. Authorities say Leonard and his 17-year-old brother, Christopher, who was seriously injured, were beaten for hours.
Police have charged their parents Bruce Leonard, 65, and Debra Leonard, 59, of Clayville, N.Y., with manslaughter. Four other church members, including the dead teenager’s sister, have been charged with assault. All have pleaded not guilty.*
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There is absolutely no explanation of why the victim wanted to leave the Church of his fathers.**
Irwin is an important prosecution witness. He testified at a Friday at a preliminary hearing that he watched Bruce Leonard strike the two teen brothers with what appeared to be a belt during a counseling session after services.
One of the articles I read mentioned how small that congregation is – Just 5 families, or 35 people including the children. That seems like a lot of children for 5 families. Maybe they felt some need to cull the herd. I hadn’t seen any mention of witchcraft before reading the above OP. Count on Fox to get to the heart of the matter!
His witchcraft, in some sense, does seem to be working, I’m sure he pretty much have destroyed that church through his personal sacrifice and the legal and social repercussions they will potentially face for their actions. Though that probably was not how he intended the spell to work, obviously he used too much eye of newt.
If Satan’s given up on souring milk, if he’s focused on obtaining legal justice for victims of murdering cultists, maybe we should reconsider Satanism as a viable religious choice.