2 Brothers Were Beaten for Hours at Secretive New York Church, Police Say-One died

[riversedge]

Real sad story


N.Y. / Region
2 Brothers Were Beaten for Hours at Secretive New York Church, Police Say

By JESSE McKINLEY and BENJAMIN MUELLER


OCT. 14, 2015



Photo
Bruce T. Leonard and Deborah Leonard were charged on Tuesday with first-degree manslaughter in the death of their son Lucas. Credit Mark Diorio/Observer-Dispatch, via Associated Press

Advertisement


NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. — After services on Sunday, the two brothers were called into a counseling session in the sanctuary of a secretive upstate church here called the Word of Life.
Stories from Our Advertisers

The session was supposed to be a chance for church members “to discuss their spiritual state,” the authorities said on Wednesday. The brothers, ages 19 and 17, were met by their parents and an older sister, as well as other congregants.

Then the counseling turned violent.

“Both brothers were subjected to physical punishment in the hopes that each would confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness,” Chief Michael S. Inserra of the New Hartford Police Department said at a news conference on Wednesday.

For several hours punches and kicks landed all over the teenagers’ bodies, he said — on their stomachs, genitals, backs and thighs.

The older brother, Lucas Leonard, was found unresponsive and not breathing the next morning by church members, Chief Inserra said. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead from blunt force trauma.
Photo

[randys1]

1. Probably had to beat the Gay out of them...isnt religion grand!

[whatthehey]

2. Religion had nothing to do with this, remember

They were concerned about his spiritual state, his "sins" and used a church congregation to beat him to death, but this will somehow have nothing to do with religion.

Religion can never motivate bad behavior...

[atreides1]

3. Which is it?

Religious fervor or mental illness?

To me it's the dark side of "sincere religious belief", a side that no one likes to admit exists!

But, it can also be a form of mental illness...where the practitioners twist the intent to one that adheres to their belief system!

Kind of like this quote from Ann Lamott:

'You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.'

[HassleCat]

4. The power of religious craziness

These people were motivated to kill their own child by beating him to death. I guess it might be possible to get crazier than that, but I can't imagine how.

[King_Klonopin]

7. In my dealings with the mentally ill (I am a psychiatric RN)

I frequently see people with "religious delusions", such as the belief that they are the Messiah.

Is religion the cause of the psychosis, or is it simply the means of expressing it (the symptom) ?

Did "religion" cause the abuse of these children, or was it a means of expressing what was in these parents' own disturbed minds ?

Just to be clear, beating a confession out of a child is not a teaching of Christ.

[SunSeeker]

5. K & R for exposure. Although reading this shit makes me physically ill. nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. Were the "other congregants" and the older sister also charged?

Seems like that whole holy cracker factory should be hauled away.