New Hartford World of Life Church Beating Victim Wanted to Leave
The fatal beating of Lucas Leonard in the sanctuary of Word of Life Christian Church came after the teenager had “expressed a desire to leave” the secretive upstate New York church, New Hartford Police Chief Michael Inserra said Friday.
That wish, according to Inserra, apparently prompted a counseling session on the spiritual state of Lucas and his younger brother. During the sessions, the teens were beaten with a cord and Lucas suffered injuries so severe that emergency room doctors thought he had been shot, Inserra said.
On the day their parents, Bruce T. Leonard, 65, and Deborah R. Leonard, 59, are to appear in court on charges of first-degree manslaughter — a Class B felony — authorities disclosed a possible motive for a crime that has shaken a tiny village about 250 miles north of New York City. Four other church members were charged with second-degree assault, also a felony.
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