Teen Fatally Beaten at New York Church; Parents Charged

(Mark DiOrio/Observer-Dispatch via AP).

Top row, from left: Deborah Leonard, Bruce Leonard and Sarah Ferguson.

Police said the investigation is ongoing between the New Hartford Police, the New York State Police and the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office.

Deborah and Bruce Leonard allegedly beat their 19-year-old son to death in a New Hartford church.

The beatings reportedly happened when a counseling session turned violent.

Deborah Leonard’s lawyer, Devin Garramone, declined to comment.

Through interviews with church members, police said they learned that Leonard’s 17-year-old brother, Christopher, had also been severely beaten during the counseling session. Church members hoped the brothers would confess to sins and seek forgiveness, police said.

“It looks like she went along with it, and it spun out of control,” he said.

“This woman is so meek and timid, she didn’t have the temerity to stand up to them and say, ‘You’re not punishing my kid”.

Lucas and Christopher read the Bible two hours a day at their parents’ prodding and “weren’t really allowed to go out of their house” for sleepovers, said another neighbor, Nicole Howard. He said the Leonards had no intention of seriously injuring their son. Four other people, including the victims’ 33-year-old sister, Sarah Ferguson, have pleaded not guilty to assault.

Contact information for the church could not be located online.

There will be no benefit increase next year for millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees, the government said Thursday.

Her husband, Bruce Leonard, is facing the same charges. His roommate said Thursday that Gilmore was away for work.

A few of the others arrested may have caused the fatal injuries, he said.

A reclusive church in New York was virtually transformed into a torture chamber by its own congregation, resulting in the brutal beating of two teenage brothers, one of whom died. The police said it also was not clear whether weapons were used.

Investigators disclosed little about the Word of Life Church, which describes itself on the front of its parish simply as a Christian church.

“They were really loud and very disruptive”, a neighbor said.

After the beatings, the victims’ relatives wouldn’t tell officers where to find the injured Christopher, Inserra said.

“We would have never in a million years guessed anything was going on or wrong before the troopers or anything were here”, said Lynn Laventure, former church member. The New York Times reports that his “injuries, believed to be inflicted with the suspects’ hands and feet, were severe enough that the hospital initially told law enforcement officials on Monday that they believed he had been shot”.