Children’s Safety: No Confirmation from Rock River Church
Summary (for those following the situation): Rock River Church has not responded to a request (email below) for comment/statement to corroborate what a pastor elsewhere in the network claimed about Jane Doe. Thus, I’m unable to substantiate the claim at this time. I continue to welcome corroboration or a statement from anyone with any information on the situation. I am updating previous articles to note the lack of corroboration or substantiation.
Background
Over the weekend, I found myself in an unexpected position. I heard that a pastor in the network (not Alex Dieckmann or at Rock River Church in San Marcos, Texas) had shared a new piece of information on my previous report (Are Children at Risk, June 17, 2022), but was unable to corroborate it or even share how I knew.
If you’ve read that, you’ll know that Dieckmann stated in a sermon in 2019:
There's a woman who hadn't confessed something for her whole life. She was molested as a child. And then what happened was, because that happened, she did the same to someone else.
I have referred to the woman as “Jane Doe” and the person she molested as “Sam Soe” (Sam is a gender neutral name since we do not know their gender).
In the original article, I invited comment or statement (emphasis original):
I have emailed this article to representatives of all three Network churches in the state of Texas. (View PDF of the email) I would be happy to post any statements they provide here or act on any corrections, clarifications, or additional information they provide.
And six days later, on June 23rd, I asked for more information again, more broadly (Emphasis original):
UPDATE: I have not heard back from any of the representatives at those three churches. Today, I have emailed the Kids Directors (or general email) at all 26 Network churches. You can see that email here.
And in the original article, I made it clear that there was not certainty and even hoped that I was wrong:
I will be telling you what this looks like to me, but I welcome alternative interpretations and, especially given the grievousness of what we are talking about, I really hope I’m wrong. I fully understand that this would damage my credibility going forward, but I hope people understand that I found this to be plausible and therefore actionable, and that the Texas Abuse Hotline advised similarly. I am erring on the side of protecting children, and if I’m wrong, then that’s fine.
And this explicit statement noting that we did not know how old Jane was:
We do not know how old Jane was when she did this, or the precise age of Sam, and that would be an important piece of information, but again the easiest understanding of this is that Jane was significantly older than Sam, who is most easily interpreted to be a child - but none of this is certain.
There are a number of additional statements of uncertainty throughout the article. I was even more careful than normal with this one, because of how serious this would be (as outlined in the original article).
Receiving new “information”
Last week, there was a flurry of activity in the network, sparked by revelations of Steve Morgan’s alleged 1987 arrest for “aggravated criminal sodomy”. One thing I heard from within the network was that a pastor (not Dieckmann or at Rock River Church) had addressed the situation at Rock River Church and stated that Jane Doe had been a child when she molested Sam Soe. If young enough (under 10, from what the Texas Abuse Hotline told me), that would mean that Jane had committed no criminal offense, and therefore Dieckmann would not have been required to report it (this is my understanding of the laws in Texas - but I could be wrong).
Jane is a real person (unless Dieckmann fabricated the entire original story), and deserves to be exonerated (as does Dieckmann). I had also committed to publish any additional and relevant information as I heard it.
What I did not expect is that this information would be shared in an unpublished setting and that I’d have to hear about it third hand (and if not for at least one source reaching out, I still wouldn’t have heard it). And the network wouldn’t even know that I knew.
Nevertheless, after I had permission from my source(s), I shared what I knew: A pastor in the network said that Jane was a child when she molested Sam. I noted that this may not resolve concerns:
many parents may have had concerns throughout that time (and may still, given that this is just one pastor’s word for what happened in another church).
Inviting Corroboration
I expressed that this was significant if it was true, and invited Rock River to corroborate:
As always - if anyone has additional corroborating information on this, then please feel very free to reach out - I can be reached at not.overcome@outlook.com.
And, I sent the following email to Rock River Church on Monday at 12:49PM Pacific Time (emphasis original):
Hi there - this is Jeff Irwin, from https://www.notovercome.org, reaching out to see if you can corroborate something.
I first reported on audio from Alex Dieckmann on June 17th - you can read that here: Are Children at Risk? — Not Overcome. I previously contacted you twice about it as well (on June 17th and June 23rd).
Over the weekend, I heard that a pastor (not Dieckmann) says that Jane Doe was a child at the time that Dieckmann appears to say that molested another child.
Regardless, if true, this is important information. I've published a new article that I have heard this, and added an update to previous articles, but cannot corroborate it. Are you able to either issue a statement or provide any other corroboration on this? I'd be happy to publish any statement in full to my site, or link to it if you'd prefer to host it somewhere else.
I had raised this as an open question in my original article and invited anyone with knowledge of the situation to reach out with any clarifications or corrections, so I'm not sure why I'm hearing this third hand instead of you just reaching out to me.
Happy to give you time on this if you need it - let me know when to expect a response. But if I don't hear back at all, I'll go ahead and post this email to my website at the end of the day Wednesday and say I was unable to obtain corroboration or comment from Rock River Church (this would be regrettable).
As I've said, my goal is truth and safety. Just trying to get the facts right, here, particularly if it can decisively exonerate Dieckmann and Jane Doe from any legal offenses. I'm praying for Alex, Jane, and Sam.
Thank you!
-Jeff
No Response
I have not heard back, so as promised, I publishing that email and noting now that I have not been able to substantiate the other pastor’s claim. That’s not to say that his claim is false, but only that it is a claim and nothing more at this point.
The credibility of network pastors has been tarnished in recent weeks, not least of which is by Krsh Penzar at Blue Sky Church (Bellevue, WA) and Casey Raymer at Vine Church (Carbondale, IL) both making incorrect or misleading statements about the age of Steve Morgan’s alleged victim. Krsh is reported to have said that the victim was 17. Raymer said he did not know the age, and they could have been “15, 16, or 17”. The very first page of the court documents makes it clear that the victim was 15 or younger, and reporting by LTN says that the victim was 15.
These are statements about the age of someone involved in a sexual assault, which is the exact type of information the new claim about Jane Doe is sharing (albeit, about the offender, not the victim).
But the bottom line is that the claim remains unsubstantiated or even corroborated by Rock River Church, and deserves to be noted as such.
I continue to welcome any additional statement or comment from Rock River Church. I cannot fathom why they would not want to defend or exonerate Jane Doe and Alex Dieckmann, especially given the effort they have spent over the last two weeks defending Steve Morgan who appears to have actually done what he was charged with (I have heard no dispute of this from the network). I would also be happy to post (in full) the audio of the event at which the other pastor made this claim, if it is available.
Still Unknown
I still do not know how old Jane or Sam were when the incident occurred. I still don’t know if Dieckmann reported it. And I don’t know if Jane was removed from working as a kids volunteer or if she should have been.
And I continue to have all of the same concerns previously expressed about training people how to deal with reports of abuse, as well as childcare policies. Those stand regardless of what happened with Jane.