Benjamin Garlick presented himself as a devoted pastor on a mission to serve Hispanic communities, traveling with his wife and their six children in a used van that parishioners had helped them obtain.
The family preached across the country and had ties to congregations in Florida, Indiana, Minnesota and Texas, before their most recent work at La Espada, a now-closed Spanish-language ministry in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
In older videos, Garlick could be seen seated on a riser beside a guitarist as they sang in Spanish. To many, he appeared to be a gentle and reliable preacher delivering a religious message at the ministry founded by his grandfather, Rolando, according to the church’s archived website.
Garlick had grown up traveling with his father, Daniel, and later sought to continue the path set by both his father and grandfather. He met his wife, Shaantal, now 32, at a youth camp when she was 18, and the two went on to build their lives around preaching the Gospel.
But the image of the bespectacled father-of-six masked a far darker reality. When the couple was arrested in September 2023, the news stunned the community they had cultivated relationships with since 2015.
Authorities said the case exposed years of abuse, with Garlick accused of raping three young girls, all under the age of eight, with help from his wife.
On Monday, the 35-year-old was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Shaantal Garlick was also taken back into custody that day after being convicted of facilitating aggravated child rape and aggravated child neglect.
Pastor Benjamin Garlick, 35, and his wife, Shaantal, 32, will be praying to god for forgiveness after they were convicted of sex crimes against three girls on Monday
Benjamin was connected to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement and often worked in Hispanic communities
The Murfreesboro Police Department began investigating the innocent-looking couple in August 2023, after learning a five-year-old girl may have been sexually assaulted by Pastor Benjamin in 2021.
During their investigation, they identified two other child victims and learned Shaantal knowingly neglected one of them, ‘affecting the child’s health and welfare, and assisted in the commission of the sexual abuse,’ police said on Wednesday.
The victims’ relationship to the religious couple was not revealed.
The crimes took place between July 2014 and August 2023. At least three incidents of sexual abuse took place in July 2014, the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal reported.
Shaantal was able to bail out and eventually had her charges dropped. However, the mother-of-six eventually was reindicted and received a bond of $75,000. She bailed out a second time, but was taken back into custody on Monday after her conviction, police said.
Benjamin remained in jail on an $825,000 bond.
All three victims were girls under the age of eight, the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal reported.
The girls spoke on the witness stand during the two-week trial.
He was convicted to life in prison for raping three girls. He will be sentenced for the rest of his charges in November
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‘All three victims showed great courage and resilience when called to the witness stand,’ Assistant District Attorney General Hugh Ammerman told the outlet.
‘I hope that the jury’s decision will help them to heal and put these events behind them as they return their focus to the day-to-day of being kids.’
Shaantal has since filed for divorce from Benjamin, The News Journal reported.
Benjamin was connected to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement, which associates itself with Christianity, but rejected the faith’s hierarchy.
Benjamin was sentenced to life without parole for the rape charges on Monday. He will be sentenced for the rest of the charges on November 10. His wife will also be sentenced then.
In 2022, the family took to GoFundMe to beg parishioners for thousands of dollars to pay for their new ‘ministry van,’ an archived version of the GoFundMe said.
Benjamin droned on about how the sparsely-funded couple prayed in order to find the money for their first van after their daughter was born.
‘She, having faith to move mountains, prayed for a mini-van with everything she knew we would need or want in our new car,’ he wrote of his wife.
Shaantal looked very different in her two mugshots. The 32-year-old was convicted of facilitating aggravated child rape and aggravated child neglect the same day
‘I asked her where she expected to get the money to pay for such a van, and she replied: “From God.” I told her good luck and didn’t think much of it after that. Within a matter of weeks, God paid for it just like my wife had prayed!’
Years later, the family prayed again for people to open their wallets for them.
‘We knew that in the Lord’s timing, He would open the door once again for us to get the vehicle we prayed for. And pray we did,’ he wrote.
‘We have 60 days of special financing with no interest. We are calling on you, our faithful supporter and prayer warrior, to help us raise the money to pay for this vehicle before that deadline expires.’
He asked his supporters for $40,000.
‘That’s as few as forty churches each giving one thousand, or eighty giving 500,’ he wrote.
‘P.S. Please look and pray what God would have you give to help us pay for this van and reach this goal.’
He wrote the message in both English and Spanish.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Benjamin’s lawyer and family for comment.
