BY GARY LARSON
BERRIEN SPRINGS—Berrien County prosecutors formally filed charges of Assault of Child, First Degree against Daniel Forrester on Monday, following his arrest last week at his Beechwood apartment.
Forrester was arrested after Police received a tip-off from neighbors that the third-year seminarian had been abusing his eight-year-old son. Officers arriving at the scene corroborated evidence, and took Forrester into custody at the Berrien County Jail, where he is being held without bail.
Prosecutors allege that Forrester adopted a method of parenting that placed excessive emotional, physical, and spiritual stress on his son.
“Daniel Forrester is obsessed with micromanaging every detail of his son’s development, allowing him no opportunity to grow on his own,” says Lynda Jackson, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office. “He chokes his son’s free time with unnecessary events, and supplementary lectureships, and fluff reading that bear little relevance to his son’s educational tract, and has set up a system of attendance sheets and book reports to prevent his son from cheating and finding something more meaningful to do. This has reduced a brilliant, curious child to an automaton who doesn’t care about anything he does, only the requirements at the end.”
Prosecutors are also building their case around Forrester’s dominance of his son’s spiritual life. Witnesses have recounted examples of Forrester family worship, which consist of Forrester preaching at his son for fifty minutes every morning from 10:30 to 11:30, under the expectation that the son sit absolutely still and quiet, save for shouting out praises for Forrester’s preaching.
“The poor child wasn’t even allowed to go to the bathroom,” said Wendy Mishko, a friend of Allison Forrester, Forrester’s wife. “Daniel stationed Allison to guard the exit of the living room, to make sure that [his son] could not leave and miss part of the service. Daniel also made Allison out attendance sheets for Family Worships. If [his son] showed up a few minutes late or came in through a different entrance, Allison wasn’t to give him a sheet. Daniel told his son that if he missed too many Family Worships he would prevent him from graduating to the next stage of life.”
When confronted about such tactics, Forrester reportedly said that one worship style and experience is appropriate to force everyone to attend, since worship experience depends on the worshipper’s attitude, not the way the service is organized. Neighbors, however, are appalled at such logic. “I think the boy hates Jesus and church now,” said Mishko.
The bulk of the case will be built on the evidence of abuse concerning family relationships and physical well-being. According to prosecutors, Forrester severely limited the amount of time that his son spent with his family, and curtailed his son’s access to basic health and nutrition.
“The boy was only allowed a few seconds to talk to his mother each night,” says Jackson. “And Forrester would permit no access to food within his domain. Forrester insisted that his son could eat at the Andrews cafeteria between breaks in his schedule, despite the fact that Forrester himself did not allocate adequate time in the boy’s schedule for him to make the trip to the cafeteria and back. The officers who arrested Forrester were stunned at his son’s withered, atrophied appearance.”
The county has placed Forrester’s son in protective custody. The boy has been diagnosed with acute stress disorder and malnutrition, and is recovering at a local hospital. Forrester has exhibited no remorse for his son’s condition.
“I make no excuses at all for giving my son a hard time,” Forrester reportedly told officers. “I am preparing him to live the life that God has called him to live. My son is an irresponsible, childish twerp that needs discipline.” When informed of his child’s mental and physical health, Forrester reacted with pleasure. “Good. That’s the state he needs to be in. He’s now ready to go out and follow God’s call for him. This is ministry!”
Reactions around the Seminary to news of the charges has been mixed. “Let’s not be too harsh,” said Arnold Grotter, a spokesperson for the Dean’s Office. “Daniel Forrester isn’t that different from many of us—especially in my office, for example.”
But many seminarians have reacted with disgust. “He confused micromanagement with nurturing,” said Stepan Mihailov, a second-year seminarian with a prior degree in child development. “Daniel developed a mindset that allowed him to excuse inefficiency as progress and training.”
If convicted, Forrester faces a maximum sentence of four to eight years under Michigan law. Defense attorneys are widely expected to enter an insanity plea.
