LeGrand was born in 1924 and by the 1960s was running the St John's Pentecostal Church of Our Lord in Brooklyn, calling himself a bishop. He had a conviction for rape. He was known as the Reverend.
The church was a business. Teenage girls and young women, recruited from poor families with the promise of an education and a religious vocation, were dressed as nuns and sent to beg on New York streets and at highway tolls, handing over what they collected. Several were sexually abused by LeGrand and by his sons. The operation ran for more than a decade and had a property upstate as well as the Brooklyn premises.
In 1975 two sisters, Gladys and Yvonne Stewart, who had been part of the household and had gone to the police about it, disappeared. Their bodies were never recovered. LeGrand and his son were charged with killing them.
He was convicted and sentenced in 1977 to twenty-five years to life. He died in prison in 2006.
The figure of twelve or more refers to other people connected to the church who disappeared across the years, including women who had complained. None was charged, and no remains were found. The entry keeps the two convictions as the count.
What the case is about is how long it lasted. Complaints were made to police repeatedly through the 1960s and early 1970s by families and by women who got out, and the operation continued until two people who had gone to the authorities were killed.