This happened close to where I live, they are still on the run.
Pastor Lewis J. Lee was discovered Jan. 31 in the middle of the night standing outside a 15-year-old girl's bedroom window, police said.
Her parents complained to police even after the 54-year-old had already been warned in a court order of protection to stay away from the couple's petite daughter, Elizabeth Thomsen.
Lee, the pastor of a Baptist church, had been peeking in the windows of the Thomsen family's farmhouse in the Town of Columbus in northeast Chenango County, said Elizabeth's mother, Marsha Thomsen. But Lee would not stay away, even after police charged him with stalking and trespassing in connection with the incident.
Now, Lee is on the run with Elizabeth Thomsen, who police say went willingly March 18 with the man who at one time ministered to the family before he and Elizabeth vanished. Her parents reported her missing that morning.
"I don't feel loved," Elizabeth wrote in a note she left for her family, said her mother, Marsha Thomsen.
And the woman is reeling with a family's tragedy. "He was our pastor," Marsha Thomsen said of Lee. "And we trusted him."
Marsha, 38, runs a dairy farm with Elizabeth's father, Michael, 40.
Telephone records revealed that Elizabeth continued to speak to Lee until March 18, said Chenango County Sheriff Thomas Loughren. "It's obvious that over time, he was manipulating and taking advantage of this child," Loughren said.
A felony warrant alleging custodial interference has been issued against Lee. State and national law enforcement agencies have been alerted to the search for Lee and Elizabeth. It's against the law for a non-custodial adult to take a child under his or her control. The legal age of consent in New York is 17 years old, state statutes say.
Loughren said Monday that he doesn't know where Lee and Elizabeth fled. When Lee resigned from the Christian Baptist Church in the Sherburne area after he was charged Jan. 31, Lee told others he had enrolled in a tractor-trailer driving school in Maryland.
But Loughren said he checked with the school and found that Lee never took classes there. Lee's wife is cooperating with the investigation, Loughren said.
Marsha and Michael Thomsen said they confronted Lee last summer about a suspected relationship with Elizabeth after a family friend asked Marsha if Lee was Elizabeth's boyfriend. Lee, Marsha said, sat next to Elizabeth while the family and Lee watched a tractor pull.
Lee was angry during the confrontation and accused the Thomsens of being sinful for thinking that he had an inappropriate relationship with their teenage daughter, Marsha said. Still, the Thomsens began paying close attention to the man who they said visited them often on their farm. The Thomsens do home schooling of their children, and Elizabeth was always there when Lee visited.
Lee was later warned by Marsha and Michael and police to stay away. But neighbors have since come forward, telling Marsha that they saw his vehicle before March 18 parked on their rural road in the middle of the night.
Marsha Thomsen is now admittedly self-torturing herself with second guesses. Maybe she didn't give Elizabeth, described as a happy-go-lucky kid, enough attention in a busy farm family, she said. The Thomsens' other children are 19, 17, 6, 3 and 1.
Elizabeth's friends told Marsha Thomsen that she had not confided in them about her relationship with Lee, although they did say they found the relationship strange.
Elizabeth, her mother said, was a money-saver. She did chores and had $100 saved to buy a pickup truck. She will turn 16 - driving age - in September. Her mother believes she took that money with her when she left with Lee.
But now, all that Marsha and her family can do is to wait for word that Elizabeth has been found. One week after Elizabeth disappeared, Marsha worries that her daughter is in danger from Lee because he will eventually realize his legal troubles.
"At this point, all we really want is for her to come home," her mother said.
Pastor abducts 15 yr old girl
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