The pastor cousin of accused Lengthy Island serial killer Rex Heuermann was himself accused of sexually abusing a younger lady for seven years.
The Rev. Kenneth Heuermann, a pastor at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in upstate Camillus, drugged and sexually abused the lady ranging from when she was 8, allegedly utilizing clerical stoles to bind her, the sufferer claims in a 2019 lawsuit.
Now an grownup in her early 70s, “R.W.” sued the Evangelical Lutheran Church for $45 million in damages. She claimed she suffers from dissociative id dysfunction as a result of years of “ritualistic” abuse she’d endured.
The primary assault occurred when the lady’s mother dropped her off on the church for play rehearsal — she was picked to painting the Virgin Mary within the church’s annual Christmas pageant.
From then on, Kenneth Heuermann, generally known as “Pastor Ken,” abused her between 1961 and 1968 — often within the presence of different male congregants and one in every of their wives, in accordance with the lawsuit.
The alleged sicko used stones in the course of the sexual assaults that both had letters written on them or had been organized to spell particular phrases, in accordance with the lawsuit.
The sufferer did not elaborate on what was allegedly written on these rocks, or what phrases they spelled as soon as laid out.
The assaults typically occurred contained in the church — on the altar or within the sanctuary, she claimed in courtroom paperwork.
The sufferer instructed a number of church leaders in regards to the alleged abuse, but they did nothing to cease the pastor — and as an alternative, protected him, she claimed within the lawsuit.
The sufferer additionally mentioned Rev. Heuermann had threatened to hurt and kill her, the sufferer claimed.
Throughout a deposition, Rev. Heuermann was requested if he’d ever touched the sufferer, and responded, “By no means. By no means. By no means. By no means. By no means. By no means. By no means.”
The lawsuit is pending in Onondaga County courtroom. Rev. Heuermann died Nov. 4, 2024, at an assisted residing facility in Camillus, close to Syracuse.
The sufferer approached the Onondaga County prosecutor’s workplace in 1991 in regards to the alleged abuse, however she was instructed the statute of limitations expired.
She was solely in a position to sue the church after the adoption of the Youngster Victims’ Act, which went into impact August 2019, opening up a year-long window for grownup survivors of kid sexual abuse to file claims towards their perpetrators, no matter when the crimes occurred.
Rex Heuermann‘s grandfather, William Heuermann, and Rev. Heuermann’s father, Alfred Heuermann, had been brothers, in accordance with public information. Nevertheless, the pastor’s obituary fails to call Rex, 61, as a surviving relative.
Rex Heuermann has been charged with the murders of seven of the 11 individuals investigators discovered alongside Ocean Parkway close to Gilgo Seaside in Suffolk County between December 2010 and April 2011.
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