WERNERSVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A judge in central Pennsylvania has found sufficient evidence to send a pastor to trial in the suspected faith healing death of his 2-year-old granddaughter.
District Judge Ann Young calls the case tragic and "beyond belief" but says it's not her job to question the pastor's religious beliefs.
Rowland Foster ignored questions from the press after the brief preliminary hearing Wednesday in Berks County.
The 72-year-old Foster leads a church that rejects modern medicine. He is charged with failing to report suspected abuse when the girl's parents declined to get is granddaughter medical care before she died of pneumonia in November.
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A pathologist says the illness was highly treatable. Her parents are charged with involuntary manslaughter.
A previous judge threw out the case against Foster, but Berks County prosecutors refiled them.