Brooke Covington’s assault and kidnapping retrial is scheduled to begin Monday in Buncombe County, North Carolina, more than nine years after her first trial collapsed.
Covington, a leader of the secretive Word of Faith Fellowship church based in Spindale, was initially tried in 2017 on second-degree kidnapping and simple assault charges. Prosecutors allege she held down and beat former member Matthew Fenner during a 2011 church service. That case ended in a mistrial when the jury foreman brought outside research into deliberations.
Covington has maintained her innocence throughout the prolonged legal saga.
The path to retrial has been staggered by multiple disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant delays, and a move to remove the original prosecutor spiraled into a separate legal battle. Attorney Andrew LaBreche had accused District Attorney Ted Bell of siding with Word of Faith, claiming Bell failed to investigate new evidence and witnesses and made a deal to drop the felony kidnapping charge against Covington.
Bell countered with text messages and other evidence showing he refused to talk to Word of Faith members when they attempted to steer conversations toward the assault cases. Superior Court Judge William Stetzer denied LaBreche’s removal request and suspended his law license for three years, citing “repeated acts of dishonesty and the significant harm to the legal profession.” Stetzer also ordered LaBreche to pay Bell’s legal fees. LaBreche is appealing the ruling, and his suspension remains delayed pending that hearing.
Fenner, who joined Word of Faith as a teenager in 2010 with his mother, has described the events of January 2011 in detail. At a service on the church’s compound, members including Covington initiated what the church called a “blasting” session on him. Members held him down and choked and beat him for two hours while others prayed to expel “homosexual demons,” Fenner said.
Word of Faith is a nondenominational Protestant church founded in 1979 by Sam and Jane Whaley in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlotte and Asheville. Members consider Jane Whaley a prophet. The church had roughly 700 members in North Carolina a decade ago, though a sworn statement from a former church leader placed current membership between 300 and 400 people.
In 2017, the outlet published an extensive investigation into Word of Faith based on interviews with dozens of former congregants worldwide, hours of secretly recorded conversations with church leaders, and hundreds of pages of law enforcement, court and child welfare documents. The AP found that the church controlled nearly every aspect of members’ lives, including marriage partners, school subjects and college attendance. Members were regularly slapped, choked and thrown to the floor during high-decibel group prayer. The investigation also concluded that the church and its followers exerted influence over law enforcement and social services, preventing fair investigations.
Whaley has denied that she or other church leaders ever abused Word of Faith members, asserting that any discipline would be protected by the Constitution’s freedom of religion tenet. The church has called the allegations false and made by “certain former members” out to target the church, adding that it does not condone abuse.
The case was turned over to a special prosecutor following LaBreche’s accusations against Bell. Both the new prosecutor and Covington’s lawyer did not respond to messages seeking details about the upcoming trial.
Word of Faith continues to operate in Spindale as jury selection for Covington’s retrial approaches.