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Mother in Church Beating Death Pleads Guilty to Assault Charges

Rome Sentinel
December 2, 2015

http://romesentinel.com/public-safety/mother-in-church-beating-death-pleads-guilty-to-assault-charges/QBqolb!YkhWXU97uvEOKNAmSkPyPg/

Deborah Leonard

On the day that 19-year-old Lucas Leonard was beaten to death at the Word of Life Christian Church, his mother admitted this morning that the teenager didn’t want to go.

But Leonard went with his family, sat through a day-long service, and then was attacked by church leaders, fellow members and his own family, authorities said.

He would not leave the building alive.

“The last I saw him, he was standing,” said the teen’s mother, 59-year-old Deborah Leonard in County Court this morning.

Leonard pleaded guilty today to first and second-degree assault. She will be sentenced to five years in state prison if she cooperates with the District Attorney’s Office and testifies against the other eight defendants, including her husband and her daughter.

During her plea, Leonard shed new light on the beatings and the motivation for why the Word of Life church turned against Leonard and his brother, 17-year-old Christopher Leonard.

Leonard said that her son, Lucas, first expressed interest in leaving Word of Life in August. She said they would often sit on their porch in Clayville before church and share a coffee. “He was acting kind of distant in the morning before church,” Leonard said today. The teen seemed “antsy.”

Lucas finally told his mother that he was going to attend a different church that Sunday with his half-sister, who had already left Word of Life some time prior.

Leonard said today that she was immediately worried for her son, because the congregants of the Word of Life church do not take it kindly when someone leaves.

Then on the morning of Oct. 11, the last day of Lucas Leonard’s life, his mother said that he again did not want to go to the church. But the family went, and during the service, Pastor Tiffanie Irwin openly discussed Leonard’s desire to leave. After the service, Irwin called for a counseling session to discuss the brothers.

During the session, the two boys were attacked and beaten, sometimes with an extension cord, Leonard said today.

“Before the power cord, I went to hit them with an open hand,” Leonard admitted.

During the beatings, she said the Leonard brothers were accused of several different claims, and that the brothers admitted to certain things. The details were not discussed in court, but Leonard said she had a hard time believing all of them.

At one point, one of the children in the church was brought into the room and she denied that anything had happened.

Reports of sexual abuse and witchcraft have swirled around this case, but authorities have confirmed that none of them are true. As she spoke about the beatings, Leonard began crying in court, and admitted that she did not have the power to stop them. At one point, she said she saw blood on her son’s leg, and another church member accused Lucas of soiling himself.

“I was too scared and too weak to say it was blood,” Leonard told Judge Dwyer through her sobs.

Leonard said that her sons were later taken to another part of the church, and she did not see them again for several hours. Eventually, Leonard said that she was told Lucas had died. She accompanied him to St. Luke’s Hospital.

Leonard is scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 1.

Eight other members of the church, including Leonard’s husband, her daughter, and Pastor Tiffanie Irwin, are charged in the attacks. The other eight members are scheduled to reappear in court this month.

 

 

 

 

 




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