Former youth pastor, Daniel Mayfield, hit with more voyeurism charges, $1M bond
Daniel Kellan Mayfield, a former youth pastor in South Carolina who was already facing 106 charges related to voyeurism, was hit with 38 more counts of voyeurism involving 24 victims as a judge granted him a $1 million bond on Tuesday.
If he is able to post the bond, Mayfield will have to wear a GPS monitoring device and will be barred from contacting any of his alleged victims, according to WYFF.
Kellan, 36, who is married, was first arrested in June 2023 on voyeurism charges while he was serving as a youth pastor at First Baptist Gowensville in Landrum. He allegedly filmed girls as young as 14 in the bathroom of the church and recorded women in bridal parties changing their clothes.
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Investigators who recently completed their work on the case say they have since determined that Mayfield committed his crimes over several years, as far back as 2014, and in multiple counties, including Greenville, Greenwood County, Beaufort County and Mt. Pleasant.
At Tuesday’s court hearing, a number of Mayfield’s alleged victims gave statements, including one who called him a “monster.”
“It takes a special kind of monster to lead worship and preach a sermon whilst having a camera simultaneously running in the restroom to victimize those who trusted him most along with their parents,” the unidentified woman said, according to WYFF.
Among the charges Mayfield faces, six are for sexual exploitation of a minor in the first degree, while others are connected to three weddings that occurred in 2019 and 2021. At two of the weddings where Mayfield was hired to provide videography service, he allegedly recorded women in areas where they had a "reasonable expectation of privacy." Mayfield allegedly set up cameras in areas where the bridal party changed their clothes.
At the third wedding held at First Baptist Church Gowensville, Mayfield, while acting as a "representative and keyholder" at the church, allegedly filmed the bridal party in secret and stored the video on his MacBook Pro.
"This was a complete and total shock to everyone who knew him, from parents to volunteers to students to family and close friends," First Baptist Church Gowensville Senior Pastor Josh Phillips told Greenville News at the time. "Unfortunately these things usually are surprises. It is the people you do not expect."
The investigation into Mayfield was sparked by an earlier announcement by investigators that Mayfield was caught recording a woman outside the bathroom window of her mother's house in Greenwood on May 27, 2023. The woman reported that she and her sister found Mayfield standing alone in their backyard after she noticed a light outside the window.
When they initially confronted him about what he was doing, he denied making any recording. Eventually, he confessed to recording the woman while she was showering and gave her his phone so she could view the video. A redacted affidavit details how, after he was caught, Mayfield declared, "Oh sh—" before he managed to end the recording.
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