{"id":297748,"date":"2026-06-05T22:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/297748\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T22:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:06:09","slug":"police-uncover-alleged-child-abuse-starvation-filth-inside-fort-pierce-pastors-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/297748\/","title":{"rendered":"Police uncover alleged child abuse, starvation, filth inside Fort Pierce pastor&#8217;s home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ft. Pierce, FL\/CBS12 News \u2014 A Fort Pierce pastor entrusted with protecting vulnerable children was arrested after police uncovered a deeply disturbing house of horrors.<\/p>\n<p> Gwendolyn Denise Rolle, 59, faces five felony counts of child neglect without great bodily harm.<\/p>\n<p>While Rolle serves as a local pastor for a church near Avenue D and North 13th Street\u2014leaving neighbors too terrified of her community standing to speak out sooner\u2014police say she treated five children she had taken in, including two who are non-verbal, with unimaginable cruelty.<\/p>\n<p>According to police, Rolle had taken in the five siblings, ages 4-9, when their father left town. <\/p>\n<p> According to the arrest affidavit, Rolle locked the door to her master suite, which contained the only functioning toilet in the home. <\/p>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/news\/local\/shirtless-squatter-arrested-at-tech-tycoons-estate-claims-trump-gifted-him-the-home-palm-beach-palm-beach-police-department-kellen-white-trespassing-mansion-burglary-luxury-estate-tech-tycoon-computer-mouse-inventor-shirtless-intruder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Squatter arrested at tech tycoon&#8217;s Palm Beach estate claims Trump gifted him the home<\/a><\/p>\n<p> The other bathroom was left out of order and filled with feces, forcing four of the children to routinely urinate and defecate in a blue-green bucket, which neighbors witnessed them dumping outside. <\/p>\n<p> With no access to a working shower, the children had to bathe on the front porch with a garden hose and soap while their siblings held up a bedsheet to block the neighborhood view. <\/p>\n<p> The systemic abuse extended to starvation and extreme favoritism; while Rolle&#8217;s own child ate fast food, the five others were called &#8220;bastards,&#8221; forced to share single packets of Ramen noodles, or sent to bed hungry. <\/p>\n<p> The neglect was so severe that school staff reported one child smelled so strongly of fecal matter that they had to spray the classroom with air freshener.<\/p>\n<p> Staff often gave the children perfume to mask the odor so they wouldn&#8217;t be bullied at school.  Physical abuse was a daily reality, with the children detailing routine slaps to the face. <\/p>\n<p> Police also noted a visible bruise on a non-verbal boy&#8217;s chest from where Rolle allegedly struck him with a shoe before keeping him home for days to hide the injury from teachers. <\/p>\n<p>Even when police arrived, the terror continued; Rolle allegedly struck an adult in the home with a plastic vase right before officers walked in. <\/p>\n<p>She later whispered a chilling threat to the children while they were on the porch: &#8220;Once he leaves, you&#8217;re going to get it.&#8221;  Stacie Schmerling, an attorney with the Justice for Kids Law Firm, warns that the child welfare system frequently fails to prevent such horrors.<\/p>\n<p>Rolle has since bonded out of jail, and when CBS12 News knocked on her door, no one answered.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ft. Pierce, FL\/CBS12 News \u2014 A Fort Pierce pastor entrusted with protecting vulnerable children was arrested after police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-297748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}