[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
A youth pastor in South Carolina has been accused of filming women within the rest room at a church in South Carolina.
In line with a number of information studies, 35-year-old ex-pastor Daniel Kellan Mayfield (pictured in his mugshot, above) has been charged with 5 counts of first diploma sexual exploitation of a minor. He has additionally been charged with one rely of voyeurism after being recognized as an alleged suspect in a separate incident.
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This all began final month when deputies on the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Workplace in upstate South Carolina had been notified Mayfield had allegedly filmed a girl who was having a shower in a personal house there. Per WCSC, the lady was showering when she observed a vivid gentle exterior her window. When she went to research, she allegedly discovered Mayfield “standing alone” within the yard.
Cops started to research, and so they took out a warrant for Mayfield’s mobile phone. That’s once they discovered one thing much more disturbing.
When Greenwood County cops searched Mayfield’s cellphone, based on WJBF Information, the deputies allegedly discovered recordings that had been taken of underage women and girls within the rest room on the First Baptist Church within the city of Gowensville, South Carolina. The church had been using Mayfield as a youth pastor.
Upon wanting via the photographs and recordings discovered on the cellphone, cops “recognized six victims.” Now, they’re working to determine the identities of extra women who had been captured in recordings.
Per WJBF, Mayfield allegedly “confessed to creating the recordings” when he was interrogated by Greenwood County sheriff’s deputies. They now imagine Mayfield arrange a secret video recording system within the girls’s rest room contained in the First Baptist Church “on at the least three events” courting again to final summer time. The women captured on video within the rest room stalls are mentioned to be “as younger as 14 years previous,” per the information outlet.
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These deputies contacted the sheriff’s workplace in close by Greenville County — the place Gowensville is located — to report the incident. Mayfield was formally arrested and booked in that county on the sexual exploitation fees on Thursday of final week. He has since been fired from his youth pastor position.
For what it’s value, sheriff’s deputies have advised native media shops they do not imagine anybody else on the church was concerned in recording or viewing the movies. Even so, First Baptist Gowensville has moved to distance themselves from Mayfield. Along with firing him, they launched a press release final week noting they’re conscious of “an incident of ethical misconduct perpetrated by one among our employees members.”
The church’s assertion went on:
“We stay devoted to offering a secure worship setting and might be ever vigilant in defending all individuals concerned in any of our occasions.”
Per Folks, Mayfield is presently being held on the Greenville County Detention Middle.
A choose selected not to grant Mayfield bond. He’ll subsequent seem earlier than a circuit courtroom choose later this month to find out whether or not he might qualify to be launched on bond previous to courtroom hearings forward of a trial.
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One horrified church member in Gowensville, Isabella Godfry, spoke to WYFF Information concerning the scenario:
“You’d by no means assume somebody you recognize. That’s like a household, as a result of that’s what our church is, it’s like a household. You’d by no means assume one thing so devastating would occur in that little circle of individuals.”
One other church member named Benjamin Inexperienced spoke to WJBF about it, too:
“I’m involved about my spouse and my daughters being on that digital camera.”
You possibly can see extra on this terrible scenario (beneath):
Despicable.
Our hearts exit to the women and girls who had been violated on this alleged act.
You probably have honest trigger to suspect baby abuse, name the Childhelp Nationwide Youngster Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Youngster or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
In case you or somebody you recognize has skilled sexual violence and wish to study extra about sources, contemplate testing https://www.rainn.org/sources.
[Image via WYFF News 4/YouTube/Greenville County Sheriff’s Office]
