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No. 3 Story of the Year: Ex-Shoals youth ministers face child sex abuse charges

By Tom Smith
Times Daily
December 28, 2014

http://www.timesdaily.com/news/no-story-of-the-year-ex-shoals-youth-ministers-face/article_4fa510f8-8f14-11e4-afa5-57151216ec51.html

Three former Shoals area youth ministers made headlines this year when they were accused of abusing children who were members of their churches.

The combined stories of their arrests was voted the third story of the year in a TimesDaily newsroom poll.

 

Charles Kyle Adcock, 31, who now lives in Frisco, Texas, and is a former Woodward Avenue Baptist Church youth minister, is charged with 22 counts of second-degree rape and nine counts of second-degree sodomy.

Adcock was a youth minister at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church from 2010-12. Investigators said Adcock faces sexual abuse charges that date back to his days as a youth minister.

Adcock is accused of having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a girl who was 14 at the time. Adcock was the girl’s youth minister.

Texas authorities arrested him in August on a grand jury indictment. He waived extradition and was transferred to Colbert County from Texas on Sept. 10. He is out on bail while his case is pending. A trial date has not been set.

Muscle Shoals police investigator Lt. Sieg Mueller said the charges stem from incidents that took place at the church and at Adcock’s home at the time, as well as at a third location.

“Basically, she came forward and gave information on what happened,” he said.

Adcock left the area in 2013 to move to Texas, according to Mueller.

In March, the former children’s minister at Highland Park Baptist Church was sentenced to 30 years in prison for molesting a boy that was in the congregation.

Jeff Eddie pleaded guilty to sodomy, sexual abuse of a child and possession of child pornography.

Colbert County District Attorney Bryce Graham Jr. said Eddie pleaded guilty to the charges instead of waiting on a formal indictment.

Eddie, 42, 706 Courtland Ave., Muscle Shoals, was taken into custody Feb. 2 and charged Feb. 4, pleaded guilty to 16 counts of second-degree sodomy and three counts of sexual abuse of a child under 12, and received a 20-year sentence on each count with the sentences to run concurrently and a 10-year sentence of possession of child pornography that will run consecutively.

He will serve every day of the 20-year sentence, and it will be more than 23 years before he could possibly be considered for parole.

Authorities said the charges involve one boy who was 11 at the time he said the abuse began.

Authorities said they have talked with several children with similar allegations since the investigation began and more charges were pending but so far no more charges have been filed.

Eddie was children’s pastor at the church in from 1998 until his arrest.

He previously worked at other area churches and the Tennessee Valley Juvenile Detention Center.

A former music and youth minister at a Sheffield church was indicted in September on charges of sodomy and sexual abuse involving a teenage boy, officials said.

Court authorities said Oliver Brazelle, 80, 311 Meadow Hill Road, Sheffield, was indicted by a Lauderdale County grand jury on one count of second-degree sodomy and four counts of second-degree sexual abuse.

Brazelle was arrested Jan. 6 after an investigation by the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.

Authorities said Brazelle is accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy who was a member of his youth group at First United Methodist Church of Sheffield.

According to reports, the abuse occurred in the mid-1990s in Lauderdale County at Brazelle’s Shoals Creek residence on Lauderdale 322 near the Happy Hollow community.

In 2012, Sheffield police launched an investigation into allegations of child abuse after church members contacted police.

Department officials said the investigation was put on hold a month later because the reported victims were unwilling to come forward.

Authorities said ABI agents began an investigation in early December after the agency was contacted by a reported victim who now is an adult.

Brazelle was terminated as music minister at the church July 27, 2012.

Police said Brazelle had not held youth minister duties at the church for about 10 years before his arrest.

Brazelle is out of jail on bail of $45,000. A trial date has not been set.

 

Contact: tom.smith@TimesDaily.com




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