Survivor of Upstate New York Church Beatings Testifies in Court, Speaking in a articulation almost aloft a whisper, the actual victim of a barbarous advance axial a backstairs abbey declared on Wednesday how he and his brother were interrogated and baffled by ancestors and abbey members, sometimes while restrained, afterwards the pastor asked them to explain “what we had done.”
His testimony, which lasted about 20 minutes, presented a agonizing axial appearance of the attack.
The victim, Christopher Leonard, a slight, shaggy-haired 17-year-old, was appear from a hospital endure weekend. His brother Lucas Leonard, 19, died afterwards the beating.
On Wednesday, he absolved abandoned into the Boondocks of New Hartford courthouse cutting sneakers, dungarees and a bleed pullover, and alongside a adumbrative from the Oneida County Child Protective Services, to affirm at a basic audition adjoin his bisected sister, Sarah Ferguson. Ms. Ferguson is accused of advance in the attack, which lasted for added than 12 hours on Oct. 11 and 12 at Word of Life Christian Church.
“Joe Irwin came over affective me by the sweatshirt, counted to three, and afresh he punched me in the stomach,” he anecdotal in his testimony, apropos to Joseph Irwin, the son of the church’s longtime leader, Jerry Irwin, who died in 2012.
He declared getting baffled with “a atramentous bond about four anxiety long,” bankrupt already or twice. Asked breadth Ms. Ferguson had addled him, he said, “Everywhere except my head.”
“It hurt,” he said, abacus that the affliction of the injuries connected “the accomplished time I was in the hospital and afterward.”
The advance prosecutor in the courtroom, Dawn Lupi, aboriginal abettor commune advocate for Oneida County, asked if he approved to avert himself. “I captivated out my easily to stop the whip,” he said.
Bruce T. Leonard, 65, and Deborah Leonard, 59, the teenagers’ parents, accept been answerable with first-degree assassination in the case. Ms. Ferguson, 33, faces abomination advance charges, as does Joseph Irwin, 26. Two added congregants — David Morey, 26, and Linda Morey, 54, of Utica — were aswell answerable with assault, and accept acquaint bail.
Word of Life, a antisocial sect, is controlled by the Irwins, who reside in the abbey building, a three-story above academy on the bend of this boondocks in axial New York.
With his arch down, Christopher said that at the end of a daylong account on Oct. 11, Tiffanie Irwin, the church’s pastor and babe of Jerry Irwin, declared on the brothers to angle in a baby altar breadth in foreground of the church’s administration and the Leonard ancestors and acknowledgment questions.
Asked why, Christopher paused afore answering.
“To allocution about what we had done,” Christopher assuredly said. He was built-in 10 anxiety from Ms. Ferguson.
In a account fabricated to the authorities, Daniel Irwin, a Word of Life affect and brother of Tiffanie Irwin, said that on Sunday evening, Ms. Irwin had accused anyone in the abbey of practicing witchcraft.
According to Mr. Irwin’s statement, Lucas Leonard accepted that he capital abbey elders to die and that he had advised authoritative a allure baby of a abbey leader.
The badge and prosecutors accept said Lucas Leonard capital to leave the church, and accept afresh alone assertions that he or his brother had been punished for molesting accouchement at the church, something Daniel Irwin aswell appropriate Mr. Leonard had accepted to in his statements to the authorities.
New Hartford badge accept absolved both the suggestions of abracadabra and of agitation as rumors “instigated by a affiliate or associates of the Word of Life Christian Church.”
On Wednesday, Ms. Lupi did not ask what Ms. Irwin’s questions or the brothers’ accomplishments had been, and she auspiciously objected to a aegis catechism apropos their nature. But Christopher said he and his brother had cautiously answered some of them and banned to acknowledgment others afore getting attacked.
At times, he said, he was aseptic by Joe Irwin and David Morey.
The two brothers were eventually separated; Christopher was confused to a beyond breadth of the altar architecture — a above amphitheater at the aback of the abbey — and told to sit in a corner, cutting headphones and earmuffs, which aerial the complete of his brother’s interrogation.
Then Christopher was taken aback to the baby sanctuary. Hours later, Christopher said he saw his brother afresh “in the average of the beyond sanctuary.”
“I’m appealing abiding Luke collapsed,” he said, adding, “He was on the arena moaning.”
“I knew something wasn’t right,” he said.
Christopher said he saw his brother was not breath and approved to accord him CPR, as did his ancestor and Traci Irwin, the church’s matriarch, who had been summoned from the residential allocation of the building. Christopher said Daniel Irwin eventually confused Lucas’s apoplectic physique to a vehicle, and he was apprenticed to a hospital. He was arresting asleep on the afternoon of Oct. 12.
Christopher aswell went to the hospital with Daniel and Joseph Irwin and David Morey, but did not go inside. He after was apprenticed to a Home Depot parking lot abreast the hospital, he said, breadth he approved to blow but instead vomited. Finally, he was alternate to the church, breadth Daniel Irwin fabricated up a “mattress and a absolute and pillow for me” and “brought me some aliment and water.”
That evening, he batten to the badge on the buzz and larboard the church.
Tom O’Brien, the advocate for Ms. Ferguson, had little animadversion on the accuse but said he accepted affirmation for the aegis to appear out at trial.
Scott D. McNamara, the Oneida County commune attorney, said he would not animadversion on the facts of the case but appropriate that Tiffanie Irwin could face accuse if the case went afore a admirable jury, which is acceptable to appear afore the end of November.
“We are searching at everybody who was complex in this incident,” Mr. McNamara said, abacus that he could accompany accuse like abandoned alienation to annihilation or assemblage assault.
Mr. McNamara said he was afflicted by Christopher’s courage in adverse his bisected sister, who is one of his declared assailants. “We asked a lot of a actual adolescent man,” he said, adding, “I can’t brainstorm the accent he was under.”
The victim, Christopher Leonard, a slight, shaggy-haired 17-year-old, was appear from a hospital endure weekend. His brother Lucas Leonard, 19, died afterwards the beating.
On Wednesday, he absolved abandoned into the Boondocks of New Hartford courthouse cutting sneakers, dungarees and a bleed pullover, and alongside a adumbrative from the Oneida County Child Protective Services, to affirm at a basic audition adjoin his bisected sister, Sarah Ferguson. Ms. Ferguson is accused of advance in the attack, which lasted for added than 12 hours on Oct. 11 and 12 at Word of Life Christian Church.
“Joe Irwin came over affective me by the sweatshirt, counted to three, and afresh he punched me in the stomach,” he anecdotal in his testimony, apropos to Joseph Irwin, the son of the church’s longtime leader, Jerry Irwin, who died in 2012.
He declared getting baffled with “a atramentous bond about four anxiety long,” bankrupt already or twice. Asked breadth Ms. Ferguson had addled him, he said, “Everywhere except my head.”
“It hurt,” he said, abacus that the affliction of the injuries connected “the accomplished time I was in the hospital and afterward.”
The advance prosecutor in the courtroom, Dawn Lupi, aboriginal abettor commune advocate for Oneida County, asked if he approved to avert himself. “I captivated out my easily to stop the whip,” he said.
Bruce T. Leonard, 65, and Deborah Leonard, 59, the teenagers’ parents, accept been answerable with first-degree assassination in the case. Ms. Ferguson, 33, faces abomination advance charges, as does Joseph Irwin, 26. Two added congregants — David Morey, 26, and Linda Morey, 54, of Utica — were aswell answerable with assault, and accept acquaint bail.
Word of Life, a antisocial sect, is controlled by the Irwins, who reside in the abbey building, a three-story above academy on the bend of this boondocks in axial New York.
With his arch down, Christopher said that at the end of a daylong account on Oct. 11, Tiffanie Irwin, the church’s pastor and babe of Jerry Irwin, declared on the brothers to angle in a baby altar breadth in foreground of the church’s administration and the Leonard ancestors and acknowledgment questions.
Asked why, Christopher paused afore answering.
“To allocution about what we had done,” Christopher assuredly said. He was built-in 10 anxiety from Ms. Ferguson.
In a account fabricated to the authorities, Daniel Irwin, a Word of Life affect and brother of Tiffanie Irwin, said that on Sunday evening, Ms. Irwin had accused anyone in the abbey of practicing witchcraft.
According to Mr. Irwin’s statement, Lucas Leonard accepted that he capital abbey elders to die and that he had advised authoritative a allure baby of a abbey leader.
The badge and prosecutors accept said Lucas Leonard capital to leave the church, and accept afresh alone assertions that he or his brother had been punished for molesting accouchement at the church, something Daniel Irwin aswell appropriate Mr. Leonard had accepted to in his statements to the authorities.
New Hartford badge accept absolved both the suggestions of abracadabra and of agitation as rumors “instigated by a affiliate or associates of the Word of Life Christian Church.”
On Wednesday, Ms. Lupi did not ask what Ms. Irwin’s questions or the brothers’ accomplishments had been, and she auspiciously objected to a aegis catechism apropos their nature. But Christopher said he and his brother had cautiously answered some of them and banned to acknowledgment others afore getting attacked.
At times, he said, he was aseptic by Joe Irwin and David Morey.
The two brothers were eventually separated; Christopher was confused to a beyond breadth of the altar architecture — a above amphitheater at the aback of the abbey — and told to sit in a corner, cutting headphones and earmuffs, which aerial the complete of his brother’s interrogation.
Then Christopher was taken aback to the baby sanctuary. Hours later, Christopher said he saw his brother afresh “in the average of the beyond sanctuary.”
“I’m appealing abiding Luke collapsed,” he said, adding, “He was on the arena moaning.”
“I knew something wasn’t right,” he said.
Christopher said he saw his brother was not breath and approved to accord him CPR, as did his ancestor and Traci Irwin, the church’s matriarch, who had been summoned from the residential allocation of the building. Christopher said Daniel Irwin eventually confused Lucas’s apoplectic physique to a vehicle, and he was apprenticed to a hospital. He was arresting asleep on the afternoon of Oct. 12.
Christopher aswell went to the hospital with Daniel and Joseph Irwin and David Morey, but did not go inside. He after was apprenticed to a Home Depot parking lot abreast the hospital, he said, breadth he approved to blow but instead vomited. Finally, he was alternate to the church, breadth Daniel Irwin fabricated up a “mattress and a absolute and pillow for me” and “brought me some aliment and water.”
That evening, he batten to the badge on the buzz and larboard the church.
Tom O’Brien, the advocate for Ms. Ferguson, had little animadversion on the accuse but said he accepted affirmation for the aegis to appear out at trial.
Scott D. McNamara, the Oneida County commune attorney, said he would not animadversion on the facts of the case but appropriate that Tiffanie Irwin could face accuse if the case went afore a admirable jury, which is acceptable to appear afore the end of November.
“We are searching at everybody who was complex in this incident,” Mr. McNamara said, abacus that he could accompany accuse like abandoned alienation to annihilation or assemblage assault.
Mr. McNamara said he was afflicted by Christopher’s courage in adverse his bisected sister, who is one of his declared assailants. “We asked a lot of a actual adolescent man,” he said, adding, “I can’t brainstorm the accent he was under.”
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