Pontchatoula resident Sarah Oller said, “I couldn’t believe when any of it happened as I’m sure everybody else around here was pretty shocked as I was.” Back in 2005, investigators swarmed the church property, even using backhoes to dig for evidence. Detectives arrested seven church members and ministers that shocked the small community.

Austin Bernard is the first of the group to go to trial for the rape of a two-year old girl. Right now, the defense is asking the Louisiana Supreme Court to decide whether two young boys also listed as victims should be allowed to testify. Both boys now say they were abused, contradicting previous statements to investigators. The judge is calling three-hundred people to the courthouse in Amite on Tuesday to serve as the jury pool because of all the attention surrounding the case.

Oller said, “I think it’s going to be tough, I think it’s going to be very tough, when you hear about something like that the first response is that they’ve got to be guilty, they’ve got to be guilty but if they did do it I really hope they go to jail.” However other Ponchatoula residents disagree. “Because of the nature of the charges against them, yes, I believe get a fair trial, said Larry Moran. Norma Kraemer agreed, “Amite is far enough away to where they could get a fair judgement.”

In Ponchatoula, the former Hosanna Church is now renamed and taken over by a new congregation but for people who live around here, the memories still remain.

According to Oller, “I do remember when it happened, you can’t really forget that, and I realize the church is re-done and there’s a new minister in there and I talked to the woman who is the minister’s wife not too long ago and she said a lot of people worried about going there just because of what happened.”

The prosecuting attorney said he doesn’t have a good feel about how long jury selection will take. He said it could take a couple of days or a couple of hours. However, the defense is hoping a jury won’t be selected at all so that the judge is forced to call for a mis-trial and the trial is moved outside of Tangipahoa Parish.

The other six defendants will be tried separately however there’s no word on when those trials will start.

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