BishopAccountability.org
	Police Say Church's Actions Thwarted Rape Investigation Wmur May 26, 2010 http://www.wmur.com/newsarchive/23674304/detail.html [with video] A man has been charged with raping a woman when she was a teenager 13 years ago and the two were members of the same church -- a church that, police said, thwarted the initial investigation. Police said their original investigation of rape allegations in 1997 was disrupted because the victim's parents arranged with church leaders to move her out of the state when she became pregnant. Investigators said the Trinity Baptist Church notified them about the rape allegations in 1997, but police had trouble following up. "There was no cooperation by the family or the church back then," said Sgt. John Thomas. Former parishioner Matt Barnhart said that after the teen learned she was pregnant, she and the man accused of raping her, Ernest Willis, had to apologize in front of the entire church. "I remember specifically the term 'church discipline,'" Barnhart said. Barnhart said he keeps in touch with the victim, who released a statement to News 9 saying she was later shuttled to Colorado, where she lived with a couple also affiliated with the church. She said she gave birth to a baby girl on March 21, 1998, and signed the child over for adoption. Thirteen years later, a website tipped off Concord police to the alleged rape victim they needed to prosecute the case. "We received a tip from freedomfromabuse.net," Thomas said. "It's a blogging site, and the woman who controls that site reached out to us and made us aware of a conversation two bloggers had been talking about from the Concord area." Police said the victim is cooperating fully. "We were able to locate the victim, and here we are today with the victim coming forward finally," Thomas said. Willis has been arrested and released on $100,000 personal recognizance bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on June 16. At the end of her graphic and disturbing statement, the victim, now a wife and mother of three children, wrote, "This is the first time in my life that I have started to see and believe how wrongly all of these situations have been handled." Trinity Baptist Church released a statement saying that the church complied with all legal requirements in 1997 and will let the courts address the criminal case.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.