Day three of the trial for First United Methodist Church’s former pastor Paige Williams and Daycare Director Abby Leach began promptly at 8:30 AM Wednesday and has yet to let up, with the Commonwealth calling parents in Emily Marlar and Angela Herndon, as well as former FUMC employees Courtney McCombs and Elizabeth Fletcher.
A reminder that Williams and Leach are both charged with the “breaching” of supposed duties involving eight children, with the convictions of Allison Simpson and Nina Morgan already complete.
Marlar noted to defense attorney Bill Deatherage that while she was part of the civil action being taken against the church, she cared not for the potential financial gain.
In what was extremely emotional testimony and cross examination, Herndon — under special prosecutor Blake Chambers’ questioning — called the 2019 facility a “church sponsor-led daycare,” and a place where she felt like she could put her child in the “care of” her church.
Under a line of questioning from Deatherage, Herndon particularly noted a “personal relationship” with Williams — a pastor who not only baptized her husband and oldest child, but had also spent time in their home and developed a nickname of this oldest child, not linked to the case.
McCombs, meanwhile, was on the stand for more than an hour.
She called Leach “her director,” and Williams “her pastor,” and confirmed to the court that she spent considerable time in the nursery, and told Leach multiple times that she “wouldn’t want her own kids with Simpson.”
McCombs read a line of text messages, sent between her and Leach on January 9, 2019, in which Leach wrote she would be “watching cameras,” and that she “felt like” Simpson felt guilty.
McCombs told Chambers, as well as Deatherage and fellow defender David Bundrick, on multiple questions that she “didn’t know” if Simpson’s behaviors were ever addressed by Leach. As Simpson remained employed, McCombs finally confided in a parent — Katie Hanning — that there was mistreatment going on in the nursery.
Later, in a text message from McCombs to Leach, McCombs called Leach “the best boss” she’d ever had, and that she’d “never say anything negative” about her.
In the following days, McCombs said she received a phone call between Williams and James Adams — a parent and lawyer — in which she was asked by Williams if “she was the one” who talked to Hanning. McCombs said she felt intimidated, and that she left FUMC “because she knew there would be a mess.”
McCombs told Bundrick that she “didn’t know what she was supposed to do” about Simpson’s behavior, so she told her boss in Leach — at one point telling the court: “What was I going to do, beat Simpson up? I went and told my boss.”
Much like he did Tuesday afternoon, Deatherage pointed out that McCombs had signed a confidentiality statement in 2015, and had later signed a mandatory child abuse reporting statement, in which she would’ve been authorized to tell local authorities, Kentucky State Police, and assistant or Commonwealth’s attorney and others — above and beyond anything the church had asked.
McCombs said she did none of those things, believing that telling Leach was the right thing to do.
Court recessed for lunch and returned at 1 PM.
