SIMPSONVILLE (SC)
WHNS Fox Carolina [Greenville, SC]
October 5, 2026
By Catie Bussmann
The registered sex offender was convicted of child sex crimes in Georgia
Members of Brookwood Church say they want answers about a registered sex offender’s alleged involvement with the church. Brookwood Church is based in Simpsonville and hosts thousands of members each week, in addition to hosting support groups for members of the community. The church is located off I-385.
The registered sex offender, identified as Jerry Sidell, does not face pending charges in South Carolina, and church leadership maintains safeguards were in place, but a member who came forward to FOX Carolina Investigates said the church did not do enough to be transparent with the congregation.
A casual conversation
David Walsh called Brookwood Church home for three years. He led different groups at the church and brought his children every Sunday.
“About three years ago, after a series they did called Breakthrough, that was the first time I attended, and we never left,” Walsh said. “I found a solid community, and it just felt like a good place to worship and bring my kids, and they loved it, and we built a lot of really good friendships there.”
Walsh, a local business owner, was preparing to go into business with another church member, Jerry Sidell, when he learned a piece of information from Brookwood’s senior pastor, Bryan Jones.
“Brian Jones told me that he was a registered sex offender,” Walsh said. “Brian just kind of casually said it, like, as if I knew, maybe…I could not believe what he had told me about Jerry.”
Walsh said the disclosure “felt like betrayal.” He said, “I feel like parents should be the ones to know and make those decisions.”
Sidell’s background
According to his sex offender registration, Sidell was convicted of child molestation and enticing a child for indecent purposes in Georgia back in 1983. Local news coverage at the time reported he confessed to molesting several young boys while serving as a youth minister. Records obtained by FOX Carolina Investigates from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division list one victim, a 14-year-old boy.
Property records obtained by FOX Carolina Investigates show Sidell and his wife bought their home in Greenville in the late 1990s. Around the same time, Sidell began attending Brookwood.
Online church records show Sidell went on to serve in a men’s ministry and would often play keyboard on the church’s main stage. He was also part of a band that performed for different church groups.
Sidell later started his own music ministry, called The Rusty Bucket. FOX Carolina interviewed Sidell in 2022 when organizers held “The Rusty Bucket Music Festival” in Gray Court.
The Rusty Bucket ministry
Walsh said he had worked with Sidell for about a year on a project to expand The Rusty Bucket. “One of the key critical components of that project was having a safe area and the safety of children at the Rusty Bucket,” he said.
The Rusty Bucket website and social media pages have since been taken down. Before that happened, FOX Carolina Investigates found several photos showing what appeared to be minors at the ministry’s events.
“It’s extremely alarming,” Walsh said. “He started a nonprofit. He purchased multiple buildings. He started this ministry.” He added, “That’s greatly concerning. I mean, my children were there and he had access to my children.”
While The Rusty Bucket was separate from Brookwood, Walsh said the church was still involved.
“Maybe on paper it’s not a Brookwood ministry, but by all means, on the surface, it appeared to be a Brookwood ministry,” Walsh said. “It was pastors preaching there. It was volunteers and staff members promoting it on social media, wearing Rusty Bucket t-shirts, performing there. I’ve been to events there and I worked closely with them for the past year. I cannot recall any volunteer musician who was not a Brookwood staff or volunteer.”
FOX Carolina Investigates reached out to Brookwood, which responded to Sidell’s involvement with Rusty Bucket in a statement: “While some Brookwood members attended Rusty Bucket, Rusty Bucket was not a Brookwood ministry, was not funded by Brookwood, and was not under Brookwood’s authority or control.”
Church holds community meeting
Word was getting out at Brookwood about Sidell, so church leaders held a community meeting. A member of the FOX Carolina Investigates team attended, and later obtained a recording of the meeting from someone else inside.
In the meeting, Senior Pastor Bryan Jones confirmed a registered sex offender started attending Brookwood 27 years ago. “What I’m going to say is going to be shocking, but I just want to speak very clearly to it,” Jones said. “In 1999, at Brookwood Church, there was a registered sex offender who visited this church for the first time.”
Jones and other church leaders went over several safety procedures the church has in place, including a trained security team, nearly 300 security cameras and background checks for volunteers.
Jones has been the senior pastor since 2023. He said that when he learned about Sidell, he removed him from serving and increased other security measures.
“We had always had policies in place about protecting kids and students on a Sunday morning,” Jones said. “But as our board began to pray and process what is the future of Brookwood look like and what is our process, we felt the need to amplify several things to the current process that already existed of keeping any registered sex offender…out of designated kid spaces on Sunday and from serving in a kids’ area on a Sunday morning.”
Jones also described a new procedure for first-time attendees who are registered sex offenders. “We felt the need to be very clear that if someone comes to our church for the first time, and they are an RSO [registered sex offender], what we would do in that moment is be very clear that you can never be in a serving role,” Jones said. “In addition to that, if you want to attend the service, you will have to go through a designated door. You will then have to check in with security, and then you will also have a designated person, a protection person, who will sit with you in the service and then exit the building with you.”
Jones never named Sidell during the meeting. Walsh said he left the meeting feeling outraged.
“I just was shocked to see how they were misleading the congregation, leaving out critical information,” Walsh said. “They didn’t even name Jerry Sidell. They didn’t mention the Rusty Bucket. They said he was a member of a small prayer group. That is a gross mischaracterization of his involvement at the church.”
Church leaders were adamant Sidell was never around children, but Walsh disputed that. “I’ve seen him around countless children,” Walsh said.
Walsh said Sidell led a ministry called “The Table” that met in proximity to a school during school hours and low security hours for years. Walsh also said Sidell played music for The Landing, a subset of Celebrate Recovery for students in sixth through 12th grade, and served as a men’s mentor at Brookwood for years.
“So to characterize all that as being part of a small men’s prayer group is misleading at best,” Walsh said.
Walsh said the issue hits close to home. “I have members of my family that are sexual abuse survivors, so not someone I would choose to bring my kids around, knowing just what could possibly happen and the damage that that would do lifelong to someone that’s a victim of that kind of abuse,” he said.
Walsh also said the focus of the church’s response has been misplaced. “It seems like the focus was on how this affects the church institution, how it affects Jerry Sidell’s privacy,” Walsh said. “There’s been zero mention about the victims of his crimes that are still feeling the effects of that today.”
FOX Carolina Investigates reached out to Bryan Jones for an interview. Instead, the church sent a statement that read in part: “During a review, new leadership became aware of the Registered Sex Offender (RSO) status of a person serving in a volunteer capacity in an adult worship band and men’s small group. He was not a Brookwood employee or staff member. Leadership responded at that time by amplifying existing policies and procedures.”
FOX Carolina Investigates made several attempts to reach Sidell for comment, including calling him and knocking on his door. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Walsh and his family are now looking for a new church. He said his family’s prayers are for accountability and transparency. “I believe in grace and forgiveness. Even the crimes that Jerry committed, I believe can be forgiven,” Walsh said. “But there were also crimes that were committed, so they will forever have a consequence on earth…I believe that parents should have the knowledge if they’re bringing their children around this man, or anyone else, to at least have the information to make an informed decision for their family.”
State response
FOX Carolina Investigates has reached out to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division for more information on how Sidell was able to open the ministry in Gray Court, and whether his Tier II status prevents him from doing so. At this time, FOX Carolina has not received a response to those questions.
SLED did respond to Walsh when he wrote to the agency raising concerns about Sidell’s involvement with the church and Rusty Bucket. The agency told him offender restrictions are handled on a case-by-case basis and there is no state law that prohibits offenders from being around minors. SLED passed his concerns along to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office. FOX Carolina Investigates reached out to the sheriff’s office, which had no updates to provide.