A Butler Township man killed himself Thursday in his home as state attorney general agents and Butler Township police arrived to take him into custody to face charges brought by a grand jury alleging he sexually assaulted a minor during a five-year period, according to the attorney general’s office.

Eric E. Eleam, 61, took his own life as agents and officers arrived at his apartment at 1502 Villa Drive to arrest him on charges of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, and endangering the welfare of a child, according to Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

Eleam and three other men, all members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, were charged by an investigating grand jury with sexually assaulting and exploiting a total of 19 minors, who also were Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to Shapiro.

“These cases are disturbing, the allegations hard to imagine, and all share one common tie. The 19 victims and the four men who are being charged with sexually violating them are all members of Jehovah’s Witnesses. These children deserved to be protected and grow up in peace, not to be preyed upon,” Shapiro said in a statement. “My office will not stop until these defendants are held accountable for their crimes against innocent children and until justice is achieved for these courageous survivors.”

On Monday, the 49th Investigating Grand Jury issued a recommendation that charges should be filed against the four men, he said.

The grand jury investigation began after the York County district attorney’s office made a referral to the attorney general’s office in 2019, Shapiro said.

According to an affidavit, a girl told the grand jury that Eleam regularly sexually assaulted and raped her beginning in 1992 when she was 12 years old to 1997 when she was 17 in a home in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County.

She reported that Eleam often beat her and her siblings, and was a strict disciplinarian who “ruled the home with an iron fist,” according to the affidavit.

She was home-schooled until she entered high school, and Eleam tightly controlled her interactions with friends, phone usage and her access to the outside world, the affidavit states.

She claimed he used sexual assaults to punish her if she disobeyed or resisted him, according to the affidavit.

“If she locked the bedroom door to keep him out, Eleam would only get angrier and force more sexual acts upon her,” according to the affidavit.

The grand jury obtained documents corroborating the girl’s statements and that summarize a meeting in which the girl reported the abuse to her mother and other adults in her life, according to the affidavit. Following that meeting, the adults met with the girl and Eleam.

Sometime before Thursday, agents asked Eleam about the allegations from the girl in an interview at his home.

When agents from the attorney general’s office and township police attempted to take him into custody, he retreated into his bathroom and killed himself behind closed doors, Shapiro said.