 |
| Mr. Stoltzfus, Mrs. Stoltzfus, and the man to whom they sacrificed their children's innocence. |
A paedophile brainwashed a former Amish couple into regarding him as a prophet and ‘gifting’ him their six young daughters as child wives, a court heard.
Lee Kaplan, 52, convinced Savilla and Daniel Stoltzfus that his relationships with their six daughters were the will of God, who contacted him in his dreams, the court was told.
The first daughter to be “gifted” to Kaplan, it was claimed, was given as a future wife when she was nine years old.
Her older sister testified that she too was molested by Kaplan, the abuse allegedly starting when she was ten and leading to her becoming pregnant by him aged 14 in 2013.
Ms Stoltzfus, 43, also went to live with the accused, Bucks County Court in Pennsylvania heard, and allegedly ended up complaining to her husband that Kaplan had stopped having sex with her, preferring intercourse with her daughters.
This went on for five long years, with the children being homeschooled, and kept in a house with the windows covered far from the prying eyes of adults who would certainly have reported the abuse to the authorities.
This is the kind of thing that seems impossible for most of us to comprehend.
After all keeping our children safe from harm is one of the primary motivators for parents of all species.
However that is the power of religion. It can make you do things that would seem unthinkable when not subjected to its mind numbing effects.
