“Listen to Your Child”: A Mother Breaks Her Silence in the Holy Kisses Investigation

August 28, 2026 | Freeport, IL

Presented by Alex Mercer

Holy Kisses Investigation | F4F NEWS

Investigative Reporting, Editing & Publication

Joshua T. Atkinson

Chairman | Fighting4Freeport

There are police reports, court records, timelines, text messages and investigative files. There are allegations and denials. And somewhere underneath all of it is a mother who says her daughter came to her and told her something that changed their lives.

Her name is Sue Neiger.

Until now, Fighting4Freeport has reported portions of her family's story as part of our ongoing Holy Kisses investigation into allegations surrounding Steven Cassell, pastor of Beloved Church in Lena, Illinois.

Now, for the first time, Sue is telling that story herself. Not anonymously. Not through a police report. Not through Fighting4Freeport. In her own words.

And among everything she told me during our exclusive F4F NEWS interview, perhaps her most important message was also her simplest:

“Listen to your child. Don't judge. Get help.”

Before the Investigation

Long before Sue Neiger became connected to a story involving police departments, prosecutors and allegations against a pastor, she was simply a mother raising two children.

She describes herself as a “doting single mother” of an 18-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son. Her life has taken her through architecture and criminal justice studies, retail, civil engineering and emergency service. She is also active in community service, Bible study, a quilting ministry and her local food pantry.

And she has another piece of experience particularly relevant to what would eventually happen to her family: Sue previously served as a police officer.

Her training, she told F4F NEWS, included investigations, traffic law, preservation of crime scenes, undercover work and open-field work. She understood the system. Then she found herself confronting it from an entirely different position—not as an officer, but as a mother.

Meet “Mary”

Throughout the Holy Kisses investigation, F4F NEWS has identified Sue's daughter as Mary. From day one, Mary and her mother have given Fighting4Freeport permission to use her actual name.

Sue doesn't describe her daughter as an victim first. She describes a young woman who is funny, open, silly and serious. Someone who loves horses and turtles, enjoys working with customers and children, and participated in dance, cheerleading, musicals, history club, Brownies, Girl Scouts and softball.

Most of all, Sue wants people to know something considerably simpler: she is proud of her daughter.

Enter Beloved Church

According to Sue, Steven Cassell entered her family's orbit through her former husband around 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her ex-husband eventually became involved with Beloved Church in Lena.

Sue says she did not share his enthusiasm.

“This was not my choice for a church!”

Sue said she attended once and immediately disliked what she encountered, describing what she perceived as “cult-like vibes” and anti-government and anti-law rhetoric. She also says she never trusted Cassell.

But Mary continued spending time within that environment while with her father. Eventually, according to Sue, her daughter began telling her about interactions with Cassell that made her uncomfortable.

“When she would come home, she would detail how he touched her, kissed her and told her she was highly loved. She would say stop; he wouldn't.”

Then came June 3, 2026.

The Conversation That Changed Everything

Sue remembers the date.

June 3 was the day, she says, Mary disclosed the extent of what she alleges had happened.

“June 3, 2026, was when Mary told me how, for six years, she was groomed, sexually abused and touched inappropriately on her breasts, back and buttocks. He also kissed her hair and played with her hands.”

Sue's reaction wasn't expressed in the careful language of a police report. It was the reaction of a mother.

“What went through my mind was, ‘What the hell has this son of a bitch done to my little girl?’”

Cassell has not been convicted of a crime arising from these allegations. Allegations remain allegations unless proven through the judicial process.

But for Sue, June 3 wasn't the end of the revelation.

It was the beginning.

“She Had Told Her Dad”

Sue says Mary told her she had previously attempted to tell her father what was happening.

“Mary stated she had told her dad several different times, and he blew it off.”

That allegation raises a painful question extending beyond what Mary says Cassell did: What happens when a child says something is wrong and adults refuse to listen?

Sue says she immediately took a different approach. She contacted New Beginnings, arranged counseling and began pursuing legal protection.

“I held my daughter. I cried with my daughter and told her she'd never have to be subjected to that again.”

Sue sought a restraining order against Cassell and Mary cut ties with her father and the church. Then Sue contacted the Lena Police Department.

The Former Officer Becomes the Mother

There is an unusual dimension to Sue's experience. She wasn't walking into the system completely unfamiliar with how law enforcement operates.

She had been part of that system.

She understood investigations. She understood evidence. She understood that an accusation itself isn't proof. But she also understood that allegations must and should be investigated.

As the process unfolded, she says she learned something else: her family reportedly wasn't the first to raise concerns.

Sue says she learned that on June 9, 2026.

Her description of her reaction required only three words:

“I was pissed.”

That discovery would eventually become part of a much larger question examined by Fighting4Freeport:

Who knew what—and when did they know it?

“How Did I Not Know?”

There was another question I wanted Sue to answer. Not because it appears in a police report, but because it is probably the question countless parents reading her story would ask themselves.

Did she ever lie awake wondering how she didn't know?

“Yes,” she said. Every night.

Her advice to other parents comes directly from that experience. If something seems wrong, she says, don't allow “I'm fine” to automatically end the conversation.

“This was happening during her father's placement and visitations out of state. I never saw this coming.”

It is one of the most human parts of Sue's story. Long after reports are filed and agencies become involved, she is still left wrestling with the question of what she might have seen differently.

Running Out of Places to Turn

Eventually, Sue says she reached another point - a breaking point. She had contacted organizations and news outlets. She had pursued court intervention. She had contacted law enforcement.

Then she contacted us.

“I turned to Fighting4Freeport.”

I asked her why.

Her answer was five words:

“I knew you would help.”

Our initial communication consisted of texts and emails. Then came a telephone call. Eventually we met, and Sue brought investigative notes and detailed descriptions of what she says had occurred.

That contact did not mean Fighting4Freeport automatically accepted every allegation as fact. It meant we started asking questions. We sought records. We examined timelines. We contacted people.

And what began as one mother's request for help became part of what is now the Holy Kisses investigation.

Why Go Public?

There is an obvious alternative to everything Sue is doing now: SILENCE

No interviews. No names. No public scrutiny. No hateful Facebook comments from strangers.

So I asked her why she chose to speak out.

“I want justice for my daughter and justice for the other girls. No one should be violated the way these girls were, and for six years.”

Going public also means opening herself up to people who don't believe her, people who question her motives and people who ask why she is speaking now.

Sue doesn't appear particularly interested in convincing them.

“I personally don't care what others think! What if this was your daughter, granddaughter or niece?”

That question cuts through much of the noise surrounding this investigation.

For Sue, this isn't an argument happening on social media.

It's her daughter.

“Where's the Evidence?”

It has become one of the most common questions directed at Fighting4Freeport throughout this investigation:

Where's the evidence?

So I asked Sue.

Her answer wasn't Facebook. It wasn't Fighting4Freeport. And it wasn't the court of public opinion.

She identified the Lena Police Department, the Stephenson County State's Attorney's Office, New Beginnings in Elkhorn, the Walworth County judicial system and the Town of Delavan Police Department.

That distinction matters.

Evidence collected or provided during an investigation does not necessarily become immediately available to the public. Its absence from social media does not establish its absence from an investigative file.

Likewise, the existence of evidence does not automatically establish criminal guilt.

Those are different questions, and they must remain different.

More Than One Mother's Story

Sue's story is one family's account.

It does not determine guilt.

Neither does this article.

But the Holy Kisses investigation has increasingly raised questions larger than whether any single allegation can ultimately be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

It raises questions about systems and institutions. It raises questions about what happens after someone speaks. Who listens? Who investigates? Who follows up? Who asks the next question? And who decides there isn't enough?

Those questions become more significant when concerns are not isolated to a single family.

Fighting4Freeport has previously reported that multiple young women and girls have come forward with allegations involving Cassell. Those accounts remain allegations, and each deserves to be evaluated on its own evidence and circumstances.

But their existence creates another question that cannot simply be answered by looking at Sue's family alone:

At what point does a series of individual allegations become an institutional responsibility to understand the larger pattern being alleged?

That question reaches beyond Sue.

It reaches beyond Mary.

And it reaches beyond Steve Cassell.

“Listen to Your Child”

Someday the investigations surrounding these allegations will end. The headlines will eventually disappear. People will move on.

Sue and Mary will still have to live with everything that happened before, during and after June 3rd.

And somewhere else, another child may eventually sit across from a parent and say something that parent desperately doesn't want to hear.

When I asked Sue what she wanted that parent to know, the former police officer didn't talk about probable cause. She didn't talk about statutes. She didn't talk about evidence.

She answered as a mother.

“Listen to your child. Don't judge. Get help.”

Maybe that's where this entire story begins.

Not with Steve Cassell. Not with Beloved Church. Not with Fighting4Freeport. Not even with law enforcement.

It begins with whether we listen when a child tells us something is wrong.

And after everything we've learned during this investigation, one question remains impossible to ignore:

How many children have to speak before the people with the power to act finally listen?