A Georgia megachurch is facing allegations it failed to warn congregants about a former youth volunteer who’s been charged with trying to traffic a 16-year-old on the dark web.
Records obtained by The Roys Report (TRR) show that on June 30, authorities arrested Kelly Garrett Ivey—a former youth volunteer at Rock Springs Church in Milner, Ga.—and charged him with child cruelty and kidnapping. And last Monday, a grand jury indicted Ivey, 41, on first and second-degree charges of cruelty to children, trafficking, and three counts of criminal attempt to commit a felony, including kidnapping.
These statements:
are educated guesses at what could have happened in this case. The article doesn’t make these claims.
The article says nothing about police contacting the church.
As for the news, here is the timeline that I could reconstruct:
Monroe County Reporter published Aug 16. They do not mention Ivey’s employment history or affiliation with the church or school in their article.
Shortly after that (Aug 17), the parent FB group broke the news among the parents.
Aug 20, Atlanta News First say that they spoke to a pastor at the church, but elected not to mention the name of the church “for the purposes of ensuring anonymity for the victim”.
I don’t know when or if the church tried to reach out to the parents, all we do know is that as of Aug 17 they had not done so. But it’s possible that they – like the parents – didn’t actually find out about this until the newspaper article of Aug 16.
I’m not defending the church at all, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to make claims about what the church leadership knew, and when they knew it, without evidence.