Jurors decide first of three rape cases against Jacksonville church associates
In the first of three sexual assault cases against a pastor and two associates charged with offenses that began in the 1970s at a Jacksonville church, Vernon Lavern Williamson was found guilty Thursday and sentenced to life in prison.
Williamson, now 87, was arrested in Oklahoma and charged with four counts of sexual battery in March 2022. It followed a raid at the Jacksonville Assembly of the Body of Christ on Old Kings Road, where the pastor, 80-year-old Paul Brady Dyal, was jailed and charged with capital sexual battery on a child 11 or younger, according to the Sheriff's Office.
In addition to Williamson, authorities also arrested Jerome Teschendorf, 70, on related capital sexual battery charges in Oklahoma. Both Dyal and Teschendorf are awaiting trial.
The ages of the children were redacted in arrest documents, but an information report cites they were younger than 12. Williamson’s arrest report says he was living on the church’s property at the time. One girl who came forward as an adult said her mother left her in his care when the sexual abuse occurred.
She reported it to the Sheriff’s Office in 2008 and told investigators she disclosed the incidents to the pastor, Dyal, in 2004. Williamson denied the allegations, and Dyal told investigators he didn’t believe the child at the time.
The investigation was suspended, but in 2019 another woman was interviewed stating Williamson would take care of her and her brothers during the day while their father worked. She said the incidents started out as molestation when he would bathe and dress her. It progressed, and about a year later it became rape, according to the arrest report.
The time frame was not included in the report, but it states Williamson was about 61 to 63 years old during the incidents. A separate information report lists the years as 1996 to 1999.
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The victim said she was scared and had urinary tract infections and would frequently urinate on herself. After noticing this at school, a woman asked her what was wrong and she told her what Williamson was doing, the report states.
The woman at the school told Dyal’s wife. Once it was made known to Dyal, the girl and her brothers were separated and sent to live with other families in the church, which is what the girl said she feared would happen if she disclosed the assaults. Williamson was allowed to stay at the church until the girl told another woman about him, and he was sent away, according to the report.
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“After the abuse that has been happening at this church for years, it is time the victims are able to get the justice they deserve,” one woman whose family members belong to the church previously told First Coast News following the raid.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville church associate is found guilty of sexual assaults
