NEW YORK
New York Daily News
BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
Members of a secretive upstate New York church determined to get two brothers to “confess their sins” beat one of the teenagers to death and badly brutalized the other, police said Wednesday.
And among those now charged with killing Lucas Leonard, 19, and injuring his 17-year-old brother Christopher, during a “counseling session” at the Word of Life Church, are his parents and a sister, they said.
“During the counseling session, the session turned physical,” said Chief Michael Inserra of the New Hartford, N.Y., police.
Over the course of several hours, the brothers were ordered to “confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness,” the chief said. “We have not determined what this punishment was for.”
But, said Inserra, “we know there were fists and feet involved” in the punishment.
Inserra spoke a day after the victim’s parents, Bruce and Deborah Leonard, were charged with first-degree manslaughter and police revealed that their sons had been brutally beaten on their genitals, abdomens, backs and thighs.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.