Relatives of Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus, the Lancaster County couple accused of "gifting" their 14-year-old daughter away, say they saw changes in them similar to cult-like behavior after they left the Amish community and befriended Lee Kaplan.
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QUARRYVILLE -- Family members saw changes in Daniel Stoltzfus after he accidentally killed his 14-month-old son by backing over the boy with a forklift in 2001 in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania.
Prior to the tragic farm accident, the Amish father had been known as kind, hard-working and someone who carefully avoided mistakes. He lived next-door to his mother and kept in close contact with other relatives.
But two years after the accident, he had turned into someone else, relatives said. He defied the church and questioned their Amish beliefs.
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And that's when he crossed paths with Lee Kaplan at an equipment sale in Erie. The chance meeting in February 2003 would forever change many lives.
Bucks County authorities this week arrested Daniel Stoltzfus and his wife Savilla, along with Kaplan, 51, in connection with a scheme involving the Stoltzfus' 14-year-old daughter. Kaplan faces charges that include statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor, and aggravated indecent assault.
The Stoltzfuses said they had "gifted" the teenage girl to Kaplan about four years ago as an act of appreciation for helping the Stoltzfus family financially. The parents told police they knew their teenage daughter was sexually intimate with Kaplan, who was more than 30 years older than the girl. The teen and Kaplan now have two children together, ages 6 months and 3 years.
The teen and her children were among 12 girls found at Kaplan's home in Feasterville Thursday when police raided it, based on a tip from a suspicious neighbor.
Man charged with sex assault after 12 girls found in his Pa. home
The Stoltzfuses apparently were living with Kaplan, according to Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler, although it was unclear for how long. The couple told police the rest of the girls at the home belonged to them.
The couple had wonderful things to say about Kaplan, Heckler told Philly.com. But Heckler said Kaplan appeared to have brainwashed the family.
That's the only explanation that makes sense to relatives of Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus, who have been heartbroken by Daniel's disconnection from them, their church and their community. They describe cult-like behavior from the Stoltzfuses after linking up with Kaplan.
Savilla's sister, Sarah Stoltzfus, remembers the moment when Daniel told her about meeting Kaplan at the equipment sale. Stoltzfus made manure-spreaders, according to relatives.
Kaplan reportedly marched up to Stoltzfus at the sale and said: "You're the guy I'm looking for."
Daniel told Sarah that Kaplan was going "to live until the end of the world."
Daniel's glorified comments about Kaplan "kind of shocked" Sarah, who kept the conversation to herself. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, she said.
But a few months later, Daniel told his mother he planned to leave the church, Sarah said.
"His mother walked in my door crying," Sarah said. "He asked to be excommunicated."
Relatives tried to convince both Daniel and Savilla to stick with their faith, but as Daniel once explained to Sarah: they now believed that the rules of the Amish church "were a God outside of our God."
Daniel also reportedly told a midwife who helped with his wife with childbirth that "God gave us desires so we can act on them."
Sarah, who is childless, had helped her sister raise eight of her children. Savilla would have a new baby about every 13 months, and each time, Sarah would take care of the previous baby and help with the children. They lived across the street from each other on Pumping Station Road in Lancaster County.
"They shared the children with us," Sarah said. "Because we could not have any of our own."
But after Daniel broke from the church, he pulled away from the family as well, cutting ties with his own mother and eventually restricting the children from Sarah and her husband. Sarah believes her sister and brother-in law began turning the children against her.
"They had to break the relationship," she said. "It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through."
Sarah noticed Kaplan spending time at her sister's house. She saw an air-conditioning unit added to an upstairs bedroom and believed Kaplan may have been staying in that room.
Although they were all in close proximity, Kaplan didn't talk to Daniel's relatives and they didn't talk to him.
Sarah couldn't understand how her sister and brother-in-law had fallen so far away from their beliefs. Daniel's use of forbidden tools and equipment eventually caused him to lose his Amish fire insurance, she said, which caused him to lose his Amish bank loan. He also stopped paying his mortgage in protest, Sarah said.
Authorities came to the property in 2009 with "guns drawn," to evict the family, she said.
"They were evicted with a two-day old baby," Sarah said.
The family lived at several Lancaster County homes before landing at the rented property on Locust Lane. In their new homes, they became more secretive and standoffish, according to relatives. At one of the temporary homes, they had a new roof installed but told the roofer that he could not, under any circumstances, enter the home, relatives said. They always kept their windows covered.
Sarah eventually lost her will to fight for access to her nieces and nephews. Instead, she found a job at a local grocery store to distract her from her grief. She wrote a letter to her sister, letting her know that the job was helping her to heal.
The letter prompted Daniel and Savilla to show up at Sarah's grocery store four years ago, where they talked to her for about 25 minutes. Savilla was pregnant at the time. The couple seemed concerned that Sarah was working outside of the home.
"They told me what I was doing (at the store) was of no use to God," she said.
Daniel also wanted to share a dream he had about Sarah and his wife, but Sarah said she stopped him from telling it.
Over the past four years, Daniel continued to visit Sarah occasionally at her store. She began to believe he was trying to convert her into his new belief system, whatever that was.
"Daniel said he could read my mind, that he knew my thoughts through some spirit," she said. "He seemed so sure that people were going to follow him. He seemed sure that the Amish church was going to fail to nothing. He was so negative about the church."
He last visited her two weeks ago. In recent years, he worked as a truck driver and scrap dealer, according to neighbors and relatives.
Neighbors along Locust Lane said they occasionally saw Daniel mowing the grass but never saw Savilla outside. They saw two small children at times, but never the dozen or so children that the couple reportedly had.
One neighbor said he tried to drop off Christmas cookies last December but couldn't get near the front door. One of the couple's sons instead cut him off in the driveway. The wary son said he could not accept the cookies unless "Dan" said it was okay. But "Dan" wasn't home.
The neighbor thought it odd that the teen referred to his father by his first name. The neighbor asked for Dan's phone number, and called him to inquire about what to do with the cookies. Daniel kindly said to leave the cookies on the seat of a parked car in the driveway and the neighbor complied.
A 19-year-old man at the home Saturday told PennLive he was the son of Daniel and Savilla. He said he remained at the home with two younger siblings and objected to the arrest of his parents. He said he "stood behind his parents," and believed that Kaplan was a good man.
The man, who declined to provide his name, came outside to shoo a PennLive reporter away. He said Kaplan never lived with his family. He also shared concerns that he could no longer communicate with his siblings who had been in Bucks County because the police had taken their phones.
The man confirmed that two of his older brothers had left the home in recent years. People in the Amish community heard that the family threw out oldest brothers, but the man in the driveway Saturday said his older brothers left on their own terms because of a difference in beliefs.
Sarah Stoltzfus heard the oldest son was living in a park in Nottingham two years ago, so she dropped off a letter at the park, offering a home. Her nephew wrote back and said he was doing fine. She later heard he got a job and an apartment.
The downfall of Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus in recent years, culminating in their arrest last week, represents an open wound for Sarah, who cried when she spoke about the lost connection with her nieces and nephews, whom she looked upon as her own children.
"I don't know if the kids would remember us," she said. "Their parents may have taught them to be strictly against us. I have a lot of fear that they wouldn't accept us. But I would gladly take them all in."
