Sexual Abuse Victim Speaks Out Against Alleged Predator
It is perhaps the most explosive allegation coming out of the local Evangelical Church in recent times. A prominent worship-leader and motivational speaker is being accused of abusing his authority to take advantage of multiple females in the church. Over the last two days, there have been at least four social media statements from women claiming to have been sexually abused by this individual while they were minors. For years, none of the alleged victims spoke up about their abuser and the acts he carried out, for fear of being re-victimized. But that has since changed and tonight one woman is taking it a step further by openly sharing her experience in an exclusive interview with News Five’s Paul Lopez.
Paul Lopez, Reporting
For the last eight years, Kelsie Parham suffered in silence, haunted by the memories of being sexually assaulted by a man she trusted, as a role model and father figure. Parham was just a teenager and the accused perpetrator was almost twice her age. He was also a worship and youth leader in the church.
Kelsie Parham, Sexual Abuse Survivor
“I came to Belmopan in my early teens like between the ages of thirteen to fourteen, became very involved in the church, and quickly became a part of legacy and everything under that banner. He was very close to me and my family and I had high respect for him and…He was there for me and my family through a lot of rough patches in our lives. He was like a father figure to me, someone I looked up to so highly, I wanted to be like him, I wanted to be around him.”
Parham says her would-be abuser would often invite her to join him for drives around Belmopan during her free time. It is an offer that she would normally take up because she felt safe around him. She says she was experiencing a great deal of challenges in school and with her parents’ separation and he was one of the few church leaders she could confide in. But during one of those drives he took a detour from the usual route.
Kelsie Parham
“The last time he took me for a drive when didn’t take me around our usual route. He took me by that dirt road by Art box where there were no street light or anything and he drove me there and just parked. I thought nothing of it because I trusted him and I refused to see him as anything bad. But, after we were talking and he was asking me how I was doing and how life is going he made me feel comfortable and he pulled me in for a hug and pulled me on to his lap. His hands went up my shirt, he started to pull up my shirt, he started to feel around my breast, I tried to move his hand cause I was still playing naïve like maybe I didn’t know what he was doing, he was wrestling. But then his hands went down between my legs and I screamed at him to stop because that was the final straw and I knew that this was going to go somewhere I didn’t want it to go and he immediately took all his hands off me. And when he brought me home I looked at him and said, is this why you never bring your wife with us when we go on these drives.”
Parham says it took her three years after that encounter to finally confide in a therapist about what transpired. But, it would take much longer for her to muster the courage to disclose this information to those closest to her. She says she always feared that it would be her word against his and that no one would believe her.
Kelsie Parham
“On multiple instances before that he would hug me inappropriately, he would put me on his lap and I would feel his genitals hard. He would tickle or wrestle me too much to the point where my shirt ride up so I knew it was him lifting my shirt. So I refuse to believe he was actually sorry. I feel he was just sorry he got caught. I struggled with relationships, I struggled with anxiety, I struggled with PTSD, I struggled with seeing him in open spaces everywhere. I felt traumatized. I would get body shakes. I would hear whispers now and again of people believing his side of the story which is a twisted version of me throwing myself on him and then having to just swallow that and take that because I was just too afraid to say anything.”
In May of this year, Rebecca Stirm, the daughter of Pastor Scott Stirm, the head pastor at Jubilee Church in Roaring Creek Village, revealed to her father that at the age of eleven she was sexually abused by the same man. At the time, the alleged perpetrator was in his early twenties and a leader in the church. This morning, Pastor Stirm told us via text that what his daughter and other young women disclosed about this individual’s behavior warranted immediate dismissal, counseling, and the establishment of firm boundaries against ministering. On Thursday, three months after speaking with her father, Stirm went public with her encounter on social media. Parham followed and this morning she visited the police station in Belmopan to lodge a formal report.
Kelsie Parham
“I don’t want, he has three little girls and a wife and I would hate, and I really mean that from the depths of me, I would hate to see a family broken up, I don’t want to see that, but at the same time we cannot keep going without holding our leaders accountable, without holding abuser accountable, so for me if possible it will look like legal action. But at the same time if that is not possible, I would just like for him to come forward to be truthful. I don’t want him to pretty it up and for it to be sugar coated. I would love for him to admit what he has done. Apologize, make a public statement and step down from any and everything that put him in a place to continue this cycle.”
We understand that the Director of Public Prosecution has already requested that Parham’s statement be submitted.
Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez