NEW YORK
Washington Post
By Lindsey Bever October 22
After a Sunday service at Word of Life Christian Church near New Hartford, N.Y., two teenage brothers were told to wait around. The younger teen said the pastor called a “counseling session” to “talk about what we had done.”
Police said parishioners — including the teens’ parents and sister — purportedly wanted them to “confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness.” When the teens wouldn’t talk, the teen said, the night turned violent.
Nineteen-year-old Lucas Leonard and his younger brother, Christopher, 17, were punched, kicked and whipped with a 4-foot, folded electrical cord during the hours-long beating that began Oct. 11 and continued to the 12th, Christopher Leonard said Wednesday during a court hearing.
Lucas Leonard was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Christopher Leonard was hospitalized with serious injures.
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