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Anya Cain
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Anya Cain
we're going to be talking about the Arkansas charges facing reality television figures Joseph and Kendra Duggar. This episode contains discussion of the sexual abuse of children. Okay, so today on the murder sheet, March 25, 2026, we are going to be once again returning to the subject of 31 year old Joseph Duggar and 27 year old Kendra Duggar. These are two reality TV stars. They both appeared on the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting, or at least Joseph did and then Counting on. And they are. Joseph duggar is the seventh of 19 children born to Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. These are his parents. And these are folks who, you know, again, have been subject of much reality TV series and discussions and very well known for having a large family, having, you know, kind of adhering to some fundamentalist Christian beliefs. And, and, and what's happened recently is that we're seeing echoes of the past because Joseph Duggar, who was married to Kendra Duggar, they have four children together, he was recently arrested on charges stemming from child sexual abuse that occurred in Florida. But he and his wife are also both facing charges in Arkansas, where they're from as well. So today we're gonna unpack the Arkansas charges and sort of see what we can see about those. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.
Kevin Greenlee
And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.
Anya Cain
And this is the Murder Sheet.
Kevin Greenlee
We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep Dives into murder cases. We're the murder sheet and this is
Anya Cain
the case of Joseph Duggar, the Arkansas charges.
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Anya Cain
So to, to remind everyone, as I mentioned, Joseph Duggar and him specifically, he is facing charges around child sexual abuse, allegedly an incident that occurred between him and a 9 year old girl in 2020 in Bay County, Florida in Panama City Beach. And yeah, it's a, it's a horrible charge. Certainly has echoes of his older brother Josh, the oldest child in the Duggar family, getting busted for child sexual abuse materials charges and also a scandal involving him where he was never charged but where he was accused of touching multiple girls as a teenager. Inappropriate sexual touching, molesting them, in other words. And yeah, this is, it's, it's a very troubling story but I think it's a necessary story to cover and look at because it is a glimpse into how these kind of child molestation type cases can work. And we're also seeing something interesting where there's two cases at this point, there's one in Florida and then there's separate charges in Arkansas that do not have anything directly to do with the sexual abuse incident that occurred allegedly in 2020. So what, what we're going to get into, like why that is. So let's go into the timeline because I think that helps break it down best. On Wednesday, March 18, 2026, police in Arkansas went out to, to basically arrest Joseph Duggar. And that was based on a warrant issued from Bay County, Florida and they charged him with lewd and then that, that Count Warren from Florida charged him with lewd and lascivious behavior for the molestation of a victim less than 12 years old and lewd and lascivious behavior conducted by a person 18 years or older. So he's, he's 31 now. He would have been well over 18 when this alleged incident occurred. As a recap from the statement issued by Bay county authorities, the Bay County Sheriff's Office, it sounds like the now 14 year old victim divulged what happened to her possibly somewhat recently and that her father confronted Joseph on it on a phone call with police detectives. And Joseph admitted to some of this. Whether or not he knew there were police detectives on the phone, I don't know. We don't really know a lot of details at this point, but that's what happened. So he's arrested for that. That's the Florida charges then as a result of this arrest, the Arkansas Department of Human Services and the Taneytown Police Department. Taneytown being seemingly where Joseph is located. They're involved in a search of their home on March 19, day after his arrest. So Joseph and Kendra live in a home that is searched March 19, skipped to March 20 around 5pm Officials in Arkansas filed additional charges against Joseph and Kendra because of that investigation that occurred on the 19th, and they both were hit with four counts of endangering the welfare of a minority in the second degree and four counts of false imprisonment in the second degree. And that day. Mr. That day, Joseph also waived his right to an extradition hearing in Arkansas, which means he's going to be likely extradited from Washington County, Arkansas, from the detention center there to Bay County, Florida.
Kevin Greenlee
There's been a lot of speculation about what the basis of those new Arkansas charges were was. In other words, what were they accused of doing that constituted endangering the welfare and false imprisonment?
Anya Cain
Yeah, I think it's notable that they have four children and they have four charges for each of these crimes.
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah, that doesn't seem like a coincidence.
Anya Cain
No. And, and, and so I think, I think what would be helpful is reading directly from the Arkansas code and looking into how they define criminal offenses, and then we can go into an exclusive report from People magazine that may be shedding some light on it, at least as far as people close to the family are saying. So Arkansas code defines endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree as one. As, quote, one. A person commits the offense of endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree if he or she knowingly engages in conduct creating a substantial risk of serious harm to the physical or mental welfare of another person known by the person to be a minor.
Kevin Greenlee
So in other words, let me just explain this to myself. If I do something that I know creates a risk to a child, then I'm guilty of this offense. Is that basically what that's saying?
Anya Cain
Yeah, that seems to be what it's saying. And there's a second part to it. Quote 2. As used in this section, serious harm to the physical or mental welfare means physical or mental injury that causes a protracted disfigurement, B protracted impairment of physical or mental health or C loss or protracted impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ, B, endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor. End quote. Okay, can you as an attorney break down a little bit more granularly what some of that means?
Kevin Greenlee
Okay, so the first thing was you're guilty of this offense if you do something that you know, might create a risk of hurting somebody, you know, to be a child. And then in the second part, their lawyers love to define things. And the second part is a definition of what does it basically mean to hurt someone. And it says, well, you hurt someone if you disfigure them or if you have. If you do something that impairs their physical or mental health. That's a pretty broad definition. A lot of things could fall into that category. The other one is loss or protracted impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ. So I guess if you, like, break someone's arm or something. If you do something that's going to break someone's arms. But I think the key part of the definition is beyond protracted impairment of physical or mental health, because almost anything that you or I could think of that could potentially be considered harm to a minor could fall into that category.
Anya Cain
That makes sense.
Kevin Greenlee
It's a very broad definition that covers a lot of different behavior.
Anya Cain
There you go. And. And so that's. That's the first set of four charges. The second set of four charges is false imprisonment in the second degree. Let's define that. Quote. A, a person commits the offense of false imprisonment in the second degree if without consent and without lawful authority, the person knowingly restrains another person so as to interfere substantially with the other person's liberty. B, false imprisonment is in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor. End quote. So that one also seems, you know, pretty simple.
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah. How would you define that?
Anya Cain
I guess, like, if I. I guess if I had knowingly lock somebody in a room and don't let them leave, or if I, I don't know, like. Yeah, I guess, like handcuff someone to a. Something and that, like, they're not allowed to leave. That would be false imprisonment.
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah.
Anya Cain
And it's not like a citizen's arrest. It's just me being a jerk for some reason I'm doing this. So. Yeah, so that's, that's, that's, you know, and listen, these kind of laws, they don't really give us a full picture, but some reporting from People magazine does look into this a little bit more, and we're going to get to that. But before we even move on further, I want to note what is a class A misdemeanor? What does that mean in Arkansas and in Arkansas, my understanding is that class A misdemeanors are the most serious misdemeanors. They are more significant and more serious than class B or class C misdemeanors. And that means that they carry the most substantive sentence, which I believe is a year in jail. A year? Yeah. And. And possibly a fine up to $2,500. So these are the more serious ones, but they are still misdemeanors. They are not felonies.
Kevin Greenlee
Yes. And let me. Before we leave the topic of these charges, let me make another obvious point. Endangering someone, creating a situation where someone is at risk of being harmed, that's obviously different than a situation where someone has definitely been harmed. So they're not in these charges. These charges aren't saying the children were definitely harmed. They're saying the children were put in a situation where they were at risk of being harmed.
Anya Cain
They.
Kevin Greenlee
That's fair to say.
Anya Cain
That's a very good point. That's a very good point. It's more of like what could have happened versus what is literally happening. So more information on these charges. I did some digging. I actually asked around. I reached out to the Washington County Prosecutor's Prosecuting Attorney's office because I wanted to know, are you guys handling these? Are you the organization that is going to prosecute these? And I was told no. The reason for that is that if they're misdemeanors, so these will be handled by the city of Taneytown, seemingly. This, this maybe the city court, city attorney who would be prosecuting these. I was told that if things should be upgraded to felonies, that is when Washington county will step in. But in the meantime, no, because they are misdemeanors, Kendra Duggar, who again is facing some of these charges, was released on a $1,470 bond from the Washington County Detention center around 6pm on Friday evening. So seemingly shortly after she was taken in. And Joseph Duggar remains in custody, obviously because he is facing extradition to Florida. And, yeah, so she. So Kendra Duggar is out. Let's go into what People was able to uncover. People seemingly spoke to a spokesperson for the Duggar family, and, you know, people close to the family are able to provide some of that information about what's going on there.
Kevin Greenlee
And this is People magazine.
Anya Cain
Yes. Not People on the Street.
Kevin Greenlee
Yes.
Anya Cain
So that spokesperson told People that Kendra's charges are not related to the sexual abuse charges. They're just similar. They're clarifying that simply stemming from that investigation into their home. That source also told People that Kendra, this is the, quote, that they said, quote, I can tell you the arrest was a result of a home inspection and the door locks being on the exterior of the doors, end quote, and quote, she's not suspected or accused of participating in his alleged crime, end quote. So what they're saying is, essentially what it sounds like is that door locks are put on the exteriors of the doors. And I would imagine, given the four counts of child endangerment, that those would be in rooms, you know, possibly the bedrooms of the four children that Joseph and Kendra Duggar share. Does that sound like a reasonable jump to make?
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah, it sounds like that certainly fits the definition you've just read in the charges. Even if the kids share a bedroom and it's like one lock, it would apply to four different kids. So it could still be four charges.
Anya Cain
Yes.
Kevin Greenlee
And if you're saying, well, false imprisonment, well, we're locking the kids in the room, that would certainly seem to fit the definition of false imprisonment. And if you're talking about endangering the welfare of minors, you could also argue that that fits this as well. Because if you have children locked in a room, whether you are punishing them or what have you, let's say the obvious thing that comes to mind, let's say there is a fire. The kids would not be able to escape the fire. If there's like a key you need to unlock the doors, maybe firemen or rescuers wouldn't be able to come in and rescue them. That's just an extreme scenario off the top of my head. But I think it is possible that if you are locking children in a room for no good reason, you are potentially creating danger and risk for them.
Anya Cain
Yeah, I was, I was a bit surprised. I didn't know this was illegal. When we started the murder sheet, we didn't really know if podcasting was even going to work out for us in the long run. Like, what if no one listens to us? That would be awkward. I'm really glad we tuned out those doubts and went for it because it's been an absolute dream come true. But the kind of uncertainty we face is what stops people from betting on themselves, chasing their dreams and starting their own businesses.
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Kevin Greenlee
It may not be legal in all states.
Anya Cain
Right. I didn't know this was illegal. I do know from doing some research, just reading some, you know, different discussions of it, many mental health professionals consider walking your children in a room to be potentially extremely damaging to them. And, you know, making them feel unsafe, making them feel like there's not. Not that trust. You know, I'm trying to be empathetic to struggling parents and, and acknowledge that I'm sure sometimes when your toddler won't let you sleep, you probably are like. But I'm just saying that, like, from what I read, it's usually considered, you know, people have thrown out the word abusive. It's usually considered something that's not what is good for a child's development and sense of fostering safety. Now, I do acknowledge that. You know, I'm sure there's, in any situation, there's probably situations where parents are struggling and maybe a child might be doing some unsafe things when they're getting out at night. Maybe there's some different circumstances, different situations. And I'm not certainly trying to cast aspersions on parents who might be struggling with a unique situation, but I also am noting that, like, generally it's not considered a great thing to do primarily because of the safety concern of what you said, like, if there's a fire. And I'm going to get into that actually, because there's some cases I found in Arkansas that reflect that. But there's that issue. And then I just think with the. There's also like, the psychological effect of that making a child feel like a prisoner in a home rather than, you know, someone who's just living there. I think that can be something that people feel is. It can be just very damaging to a child. And I would like to think no one wants to hurt their children, you know, and. But if people are doing something because, you know, they're. That's how they grew up or they're used to it, there can be cycles of that that become very problematic. But anyways, that's what seemingly this is all about. Obviously that's not directly related to the sexual. Alleged sexual abuse incident that occurred in 2020, but still something that authorities in Arkansas felt was a problem. Certainly now what people said was that Kendra and Joseph could be facing up to eight years in prison for these charges and thousands of dollars in fines. Can you tell me, Kevin, why? It's like, it's very unlikely that seemingly Kendra does Not have a criminal record. Why it would be unlikely that she would get one year per count here. So four and four. Eight. Eight years. That's what they're doing the math on. So she's facing up to eight years. Can you tell us why that's technically true? While, although, while it's very unlikely that that would come to pass.
Kevin Greenlee
Yeah, it's technically true because that is the maximum penalty that you would have to serve if you get convicted on everything and the sentences are stack. But realistically that's not going to happen. As you so aptly noted. She is a first time offender. She might be able to say, I didn't know this was against the law. You just said you didn't know it was against the law. Maybe, maybe she didn't know it's against the law.
Anya Cain
To be clear, I didn't know it was against the law, but I would never do it and I think it's wrong. I just want to say that that's my personal injection into this. I'm not excusing it. I just didn't know that was specifically against the law. It's my understanding that spanking isn't really even against the law in many places. I thought there was, you know, I guess I sort of figured it was something more like that where it's like a disciplinary thing that maybe a lot of people say, hey, this isn't a good thing to do, but not necessarily illegal.
Kevin Greenlee
But yeah, first time offender, it's not a violent offense. I, I would be surprised if they, they chose to throw the book at her.
Anya Cain
Seems very unlikely that they would. You have, you know, you have the opportunity for a prosecutor to try to go for eight years. But my view is prosecutorial discretion would almost certainly say that that's not going to happen. Also, as you aptly pointed out earlier, you know, we don't know the situation. Are these four locks on four doors? Is it two locks on two doors, boys versus girls? There's two boys and two girls in the, with the kids and. Or is it, um, you know, what's the combination? Because then it might be even harder to argue that these are separate incidents if there's less than four doors. Does that make sense? Cause it's like, oh no, I mean, technically there's only two. So I mean it seems unlikely. I would imagine something like this would not necessarily even lead to jail time. Now class A misdemeanor, as we said, is the most serious of the misdemeanors. So I, I would imagine there might be some certainly Fines. But this seems like the sort of thing that may be worked out in a plea deal. Those things can. Can happen. And frankly, most things are worked out in a deal versus a trial. So, you know, that might be something where she pays a certain fine to avoid jail time, pleads guilty to it, agrees not to do it again. It's just difficult. I mean, listen, we're speculating. It's difficult to say how anything will play out or what the. What, you know, what will happen with these Arkansas charges. But I do think that, you know, it's when. When I see People magazine saying she's facing up to eight years, they're not wrong. I. I'm not correcting them, but it just seems unlikely that that would be the case. It can be difficult for prosecutors to stack charges if there's not a good argument to do so. As far as them being separate incidents. And again, yeah. So I don't know. One thing I've been trying to figure out is where exactly do Kendra and Joseph live? It's been a bit confusing. I've seen. I recall that in the show. I believe they were gifted some kind of home on the Duggar family compound. I don't know if that's where they're still in residence or what's going on with that or do they own the home or did they move? I don't know. So I'm not sure where exactly all this is taking place or how close it is to the Duggars. People have pointed out, though. Oh, actually, no. So here I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get back to the Duggars in the end. But I would like to talk about some cases I found of child endangering the welfare of a minor. That kind of at least echoed this. Although I will admit that each of these cases is significantly more severe in terms of the outcome. As far as we know, it's not been reported that Joseph and Kendra's children were found living in abject squalor and filth. Right. I guess anything's possible, but that's certainly not out there. So I'm not going to assume that's the case. So let's go to the Log CABIN Democrat, the May 25, 1993 issue. And it talked about in Little Rock, Arkansas case where the state supreme court upheld a conviction of endangering the welfare of a minor and first degree murder. This involved a woman named Francis Watson of Little Rock. She was charged after a 19. I'm sorry. A September 24, 1988 fire killed one of two children who she had locked in her attic. And this was Anthony Scott and Daniel Torick. Scott died, unfortunately. Daniel Torick was rescued by Rita Wilson Francis's daughter. But then two years later, he had to have his leg amputated after he was scalded by boiling water when he was 7 years old. That's horrible.
Kevin Greenlee
That's horrifying.
Anya Cain
Torick lived with the Watsons after his mother, Shirley Torick, abandoned him. This was a whole debate where she was almost like, well, they're not really my kids, and I didn't really, like, have them legally, so I shouldn't have to take care of them. I should just be able to lock them in an attic and then one of them dies in a fire. I mean, so, yeah, understandably, the Arkansas State Supreme Court was like, nope, obviously that's a more extreme case because a child died as the result of that. But it can show the dangers of having kids locked up in a house if there's an emergency situation. So the Times Record, the February 6, 2020, 2005 edition talks about a Fort Smith, Arkansas case. This is involving a woman named Malika Shemar Hamilton, 26 years old at the time. Police went to her house at 1:30 in the morning, and they found three children, ages 5, 7 and 8, locked in a bedroom. And the bedroom was locked from the outside. These kids had no access to the bathroom, telephone, water, food. There's no adult in the apartment or home or whatever. And they had been tipped off by a relative of the kids who was saying, hey, this woman is locking her kids up. This happened. The kids claimed that this had happened three times. And Hamilton was found and arrested at the 1022 Club. So she went out to the club, locking her three children in a room with no bathroom and no food and no adult supervision. So, yeah, she was hit with three counts of endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree. So I would imagine that the first degree, Kevin, would be probably more. More stringent or more serious circumstances.
Kevin Greenlee
Is that, yeah, first degree would certainly suggest more of a level of intent, necessarily.
Anya Cain
And so talk about that with the intent. Like, what. What does that. Why does that matter
Kevin Greenlee
if you realize intent basically makes things worse? Because you know what you're doing and you're specifically doing it in order to cause damage or harm. It's not an accident. It's not something you do in the heat of a moment. It suggests there's been some deliberation. You've taken time to think about it before you've done it.
Anya Cain
And Accordingly, endangering a welfare of a minor in the first degree is a class D felony. So that's where it goes into a felony charge versus a class A misdemeanor. I'm going to read out what first degree entails from the code quote. A. A person commits the offense of endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree if being a parent, guardian, person legally charged with care or custody of a minor or a person charged with the supervision of a minor, he or she purposely won engages in conduct creating a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to a minor or two deserts a minor less than 10 years old under circumstances creating a substantial risk or of death or serious physical injury. B. Endangering the welfare of a minor in the first degree is a class D felony. C. It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under this section that a parent voluntarily delivered a child to or left the child with, or in or voluntarily arranged for another person to deliver a child to and leave the child with or in a medical provider, law enforcement agency, fire department, or a newborn safety device, end quote. Right.
Kevin Greenlee
So it's actually what it's saying there is, that a first degree offense is risk of death, which is certainly stronger than the risk you read earlier for second degree.
Anya Cain
You might get hurt versus you might die. Yeah, right. So there's. But they also say purposely too. So there is. There is a bit of an intense situation going on.
Kevin Greenlee
It's not so much intent as to what I was saying. It was, it was actually more of the level of harm is lose how I read that. Keep in mind, I'm not an expert on Arkansas law.
Anya Cain
Okay, Well, I mean that. But what you're saying is very helpful and it makes sense. So the last and the last of the three cases I was able to dig up the Log county, the Log Cabin Democrat again, this time July 25, 2018. Conway, Arkansas police find they're called by neighbors and find a three year old boy playing near a busy thoroughfare wearing only a diaper and shoes. He's filthy. And then they go to his house and there's a five year old boy leaning out the window, also filthy, saying the toddler pushed out the window and ran off. And they get there, they find the children have been barricaded in the room by blocked, the two doors blocked by a large dresser and then the other one locked from the opposite side. And they also find a two year old baby girl in a crib, also filthy. Their mother, Rose Margulis came out and starts yelling at the Cops, because obviously it's their fault and gets arrested. And then the grandfather's also in the house, Timothy Welch, and they're both taken, the adults are taken to the county jail on suspicion of child endangerment. So obviously, all those cases are pretty extreme. But it's giving you a bit of an idea of, you know, why this is also against the law. So let's talk about the Duggars family history with locking kids in rooms, because this is something that's really actually been discussed as a result of this. People remember when the Josh Duggar scandal first hit, when it was revealed that he had sexually abused his, some of his sisters, as well as a family friend. And people are kind of looking back on this and saying, okay, this was kind of something that maybe there was some indication that this might have been happening earlier. And my sources for this are there are two interviews done by Megyn Kelly, formerly of Fox News. She had exclusive interviews with both Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, Joseph's parents, as well as Jill and Jessa Duggar, his sisters. And Those aired on June 3, 2015 and June 5, 2015, I think. And it was part of Vox News's the Kelly File, which was on at the time. So I'm going to read some excerpts from that that I found interesting. I'll read the the second one first. This is with Jill and Jessa Duggar. Again, these are, I believe, Joseph's older sisters. Some two of the 19 children and two of the stars of Counting on, which was the show that was kind of reformed after 19 kids in council was canceled. And then of course, Counting on was also canceled because of Josh, because it was canceled after his arrest for child sexual abuse charges. So Megan Kelly asks what were the safeguards that were put into place to make sure, end quote. She's asking specifically about, like, safeguards to make sure Josh wouldn't sexually abuse you and children in the household after he got back. And Jill says, quote, not being alone, my parents said, okay, we're not going to do this hide and seek thing where two people go off and hide together. Jessa adds, not babysitting girls. Kelly says at night in your room locked. And Jill says, locks on the doors. You know, everybody's in bed, girls in the girls room, boys in the boys room. Yeah, they just. And as a mother now, I look back and I think, you know, my parents did such an amazing job for me. Even when we went through the DHS investigation, they complimented my parents on what an amazing job they did through that process, end quote. So she's revealing locks on the doors in order to keep Josh in or out? Seemingly. It's not quite clear to me based on this, what's exactly happening. Are the other girls locked in? Are they both locked in? You know, and, and how is that working exactly? Um, is. Is. Are the girls able to get themselves out but just Josh can't come in? Like, I just don't. I mean, like, you know, what, what's going on? I don't.
Kevin Greenlee
It's not clear to me. Is Josh locked in?
Anya Cain
They just say locks on the doors when, when it comes to the girls. So it's a bit unclear, not clear to me who's exactly locked in and who has the power to exit versus enter. Is it just that there's a lock on the inside so that Josh himself can't get in, but maybe the parents can, but the girls can get out? Or is it a situation where everyone's being locked in their bedroom at night?
Kevin Greenlee
That is.
Anya Cain
It's very.
Kevin Greenlee
Raises more questions than it answers.
Anya Cain
It does. And they're also talking about how, you know, they're. They don't want essentially boy and girl siblings, you know, brothers and sisters to be able to kind of go off and do hide and seek games because that might be a pretext for sexual abuse. Now I think even more telling is the interview with Jim Bob and Michelle. This was again with Megyn Kelly and well, interestingly enough, in the little teaser for this, they talked about like they had a clip from the show and they talked about Joseph's jurisdiction being to take out the trash because all the kids had like specific chore for themselves. So, so this is, this is what Jim Bob and Michelle claim happened with Josh. Again, there's echoes of the Joseph situation with some of this. And they say that Josh was actually the one who came to them to confess what he had been doing to his sisters and a family friend. And, and then Jim Bob says, interestingly enough, quote, nothing ever happened like that again in the girls bedrooms after that. So we had safeguards that protected from them from that. But there was another incident where two different incidents where girls were like laying on the couch and it was. And he had touched them over the couch and actually touched their breasts while they were asleep. And so, yeah, over their clothes. And so it was a very difficult situation. But we've talked to other parents and different ones since then. A lot of families have said they've had similar things happen in their families, end quote. So he's saying that Josh tells them what he's Doing. And then he stops doing those things in the girls bedrooms, but he keeps doing them to. He keeps touching them inappropriately, just not in the bedrooms. What strikes you about Jim Bob's language around some of this?
Kevin Greenlee
He seems at one point he says, oh, this is not rape or anything like that. This was touching somebody over their clothes. He generally seems to be minimizing it.
Anya Cain
He's definitely minimizing it. He's absolutely minimizing it. And I think we don't even need to just think. He made some clumsy word choices here. They minimized it by not seeking a serious intervention immediately and by not doing so promptly. It actually victimized other girls because the incidents continued after Josh had apparently disclosed this to his parents.
Kevin Greenlee
Yes.
Anya Cain
So not only is he minimizing it when talking to Megyn Kelly all those years later, but at the time, they didn't. These safeguards didn't work, and they actually resulted in more kids being victimized by Josh. So I think that's notable. Yeah. They said, it's not rape. It's just touching. He talks about how Josh came to them crying and. And this is just such a telling quote, quote. Then he came to us and was crying and told us what happened. And it was after that third time he came to us is where we really felt like, you what? We have done everything we can as parents to handle this in house. We need to get help. And that's actually when we went to outside folks and we asked some very close friends if they could come over. Some of my best friends came over and we talked about it. And so at that point, we pulled Josh out of the house. We knew a man who mentored young men, and he really helped young men who had made unwise choices in their lives to get straightened out. He was running a little training center in Little Rock, Arkansas. And under the roof of that training center, you had the Little Rock Police Department on one side and you had a prison ministry on the other side. And he said Josh could come down there and actually do some construction work with him, and he would counsel him and work with him and hopefully get him straightened out. End quote. I would be curious for mental health professionals who are listening, is construction work a good antidote to somebody acting out, you know, sexually abusive actions on their siblings as a teenager? I'm guessing the answer is no. You know, I'm not saying that that kind of thing can never be helpful to a kid who's going through a hard time. But I think what Josh has was not well served by these actions taken and by the lack of, frankly, seriousness that his parents put on this situation. What are your takes? Am I being overly harsh here?
Kevin Greenlee
No, I, I think that, I think that's fair. By not handling this more aggressively, they created a situation where more people got victimized, which obviously caused enormous harm to the victims. And it also wasn't the best result for Josh. If he'd gotten help earlier, more aggressively, perhaps he would be in a better place today.
Anya Cain
I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of rehabilitation for teenage boys or young men with the kind of issues that would make them touch a sibling sexually. I don't claim to know, can that be rehabilitated, what circumstances create the, the opportunity for rehabilitation or at least mitigation. I don't claim to know that. I'm not an expert. I'm not a mental health expert. I've heard people say, you know, once you're, once you're going down that road, it's too late. You know, lock em up and throw away the key. I've seen people say no. With effective treatment, those people can actually move on from that and live a normal life. I just don't know. But either way, I think the loving thing to do in that situation for your son is to, you know, get, get serious mental help and probably bring in the law. And I, I think that with. You also have to be looking at your children who have been victimized, and frankly, they should come first. Yes, I mean, that's just my take. I'm, you know, I'm not saying completely abandon the victimizer because that's also your child. And I understand that, but the, the response should be, I think, more toward the victims. So, yeah, so that's, that's what happened. And, and you know, they, they do this. And Megyn Kelly asked them, some people have said, why did they wait? Why didn't they go to the authorities or go to counseling? The very first time he came to you, Jim Bob said, you know, I talked to somebody that worked at one of those juvenile youth sex offender facilities and he described how they actually take care of these situations down there, and the success rate is not very good. So we felt like going from a perspective of really reaching his heart first would be important. And so that's the reason we sent him down to Little Rock to work with this man. Megyn Kelly asked, did legal ever pop into your mind? Like we have legal obligations? Jim Bob says, you know what? As parents, you're not mandatory reporters. You are. The law allows for parents to do what they think is best for their child. So we got him out of the home and we sent him down to this place. And that was really probably the best decision that we made through the whole process because it was at this place. This is the first time Josh has ever been out of the home. Megyn Kelly He's 15 at this point. Shin Bobby said he just turned 15. It was at this point that he came to the end of himself and God really worked in his life. As a matter of fact, he broke and he went and asked God to forgive him. He went back and asked those he had offended to forgive him. We felt like the last jurisdiction of who he needed to make things right was with. Was with the law. So, yeah, again, there's like this minimization and there's also this kind of, like. I think it's. It's kind of wild to me that it's like, hey, did you guys do the right thing? Well, we're not mandatory reporters. It's like, how do you even know that? Like, you know what I mean? And also, it's. Your children are being victimized. Cheese.
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Anya Cain
feels like a lot of this is. It's. It's this family trying to stretch to protect their firstborn son at the expense of their younger daughters. Yes, they're choosing him over them. I'm sure they didn't feel like that. I'm sure. You know, I'm sure that wasn't a conscious thing. It's just the reaction kind of tells you what somebody values and it wasn't those girls. No, I don't think so. I, I, I think all the whole thing is a huge safety risk. And listen, my heart goes out. Listen. I think, I think sexual abuse within families by like a disturbed older brother or whatever is probably a little bit more prevalent than any of us like to think because it's very disturbing. But I, I understand how agonizing that would be. That would be like ripping your heart out because that, that victimizer, that abuser is somebody's baby too, especially if they're still a kid. Right. I get that it's difficult. I'm not trying to just pile on here, but I also feel like you really have an obligation to the kids who've been victimized in that situation. And I don't feel like that was met here. But it's interesting, the locks on the doors thing. People I think are talking about it like, oh, Joseph and Kendra, like, you know, they all knew and you know, like they, they knew that there were other kids who were abusers. I think this is more about dealing with Josh, but it obviously kind of maybe gave some lessons to the siblings and families in this, in this household of like, oh, we put locks on doors even though it's a safety issue. But I don't know, it's, it's just sad. They, Megyn Kelly asked them specifically about like one of the last incidents before they forced Josh out of the house was that the child who was, who was assaulted was extremely young. She said she didn't want to say an age because she didn't want to identify the child, but like she said, single digits. So, you know, they, you know, Megan Kelly says this is not, this is not like a licensed therapist. It's somebody, a Christian based thing. Jim Bob says Christian based, but I can tell you what treatments facility, it really had a huge impact on his life. And it really, that was the turning point in his life and this man really reached his heart. Megan Kelly asked what it was like having everybody living under the same roof while they knew this was going on, but he had not been removed yet. And Jim Bob said, well, we tried to make things as normal as we can, but also, you know, Michelle and I were both keeping an eye on Josh, you know, all the time and watching his behaviors and watching his attitudes. Megan Kelly asked, and prior to him leaving, were you concerned about the safety of your daughters? Michelle said, well, we definitely put in our home. Jim Bob says, yes. And we also talked to our daughters and reminded them about wrong and right touch and about if Anyone ever touched you in a wrong way for you to come and tell your mom and dad? Michelle said, immediately, we tre. We tell them they have, you know, they have a safe place to share your heart. And so we were trying to protect and watch and make sure that their hearts were safe. They had a safe place to talk at the same time, putting boundaries and safeguards up in our home. Jim Bob said we weren't going to give up on Josh. They talk about how they said that the girls who he touched were mostly not aware that it had happened, but in some instances, it sounds like they were aware. So I'm not sure, like, what the breakdown on that is. I thought this was a very interesting redirect by. By Kelly. At one point, she said, as a parent, did you feel guilty when you learned that his behavior had continued and that other girls in the house had become victims? Jim Bob said, yes. I think as parents, you feel like a failure when one of your kids does something wrong. You feel like if I had done more training or maybe something else, this wouldn't have happened. But the truth is that kids will make their own choices and they will make their own decisions, even though you've taught them about what's right and wrong.
Kevin Greenlee
So in other words, it's not my fault.
Anya Cain
Well, Megyn Kelly actually follows up. I'm talking more about. I'm asking more about as the father of your girls than as the father of Josh. You know, it must have been very hard to look at your little one and know that the behavior had been ongoing. As difficult as your position was, Jim Bob says. Right. I was so thankful, though, that Josh came and told us and our girls, even though this was a very bad situation. As we've talked to other families who've had, you know, other things happen, a lot of their stories were even worse. It.
Kevin Greenlee
It.
It feels to me, and correct me if you feel I'm being too harsh, but it feels to me that what he's doing there is more of an attempt at damage control than honestly grappling with what these events have meant to his family.
Anya Cain
Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, it's. It's totally insincere. It's just phoniness. I'm sorry. Like, I. It's. It actually disgusts me on a visceral level. I mean, Megyn Kelly, I mean, to her credit, I mean, she's asking them some. You know, I think a lot of people felt that at the time that this was a pretty softball interview. It was a sympathetic interview. And I think aspects of it certainly play that way when I watch it. But I think she actually asked him some pretty tough questions in terms of, like, I think they were framed softer, perhaps than others would have framed them. But I feel like saying, like, hey, had you acted earlier, the youngest victim would not have been victimized. What do you think about that? And having him be like, well, kids make bad decisions. You know, it's like, no, you made a bad decision and that hurt your other children. You know, like, these things happen. These things can happen in any family. I, I'm really. I. I see sometimes people saying, well, these people subscribe to extremely patriarchal and frankly, misogynistic culture. So therefore, you know, it's natural that predators would come up in this. And I think I understand where that thinking comes from, but it is. It's actually kind of dangerous because I don't care where you are, who you are, socioeconomic background, race, religion, lack of religion, you know, whether. Whether you're in a conservative community, a progressive community, moderate community, I don't care where you are. Predators exist. Every background. Ask anybody who works in that, you know, it doesn't matter who you are. There are. They're going to be predators. You know, no one is immune to this. The difference, though, in this situation, I think this speaks to the danger of a system that puts such an onus on young girls and women to manage the sexual needs and desires of boys and young men and men in general. I think the danger here is not that it's going to produce necessarily more predators just because it, you know, it's. It's like, let's subjugate the women. I think it's more that when predators exist, instead of dealing with it in a way that is, you know, victim centric and logical, the impulse is to minimize and the impulse is to sweep it away. I could envision situations where a family might learn about some of this and just tell the girls to just shut up and, you know, that's your older brother. We're not doing anything about it. In this case. It sounds like, to be fair, where we can be fair, it sounds like Jim Bob and Michelle took some action. They may have felt that that was the right action. I think what they did was extremely dangerous, and I think what they did was sweep it under the rug. They may have not felt that way, but when I see this, it's like, you know, they claim they went to Arkansas state police with him and that he divulged all this to a trooper who later turned out to be a pedophile him. So, I mean, it's hard to say. Like, they say, yeah, well, we went to the law. But, like, I don't know, the trooper disputes, like, he said that Josh only told him about one incident. It's this whole thing. So I don't know who to believe in that situation, to be honest, because everybody has credibility problems. But it's. It's just very troubling. I feel very sorry for Josh's victims. And then they were kind of traumatized with the. How this all came out. Ben, the thing, though, about Josh is that we can't just look at him and say, well, he did it when he was very young, blah, blah, blah, because we know the problematic behavior continued, and we know that he went on to be somebody who was found in with possession of child sexual abuse materials. So whatever they were trying to do to help him stem those abusive and bad urges, ultimately, you know, whatever their intent was on that, it obviously didn't work. And again, I'm not saying, like, I don't know if that can be cured or if you can do early intervention and kind of get someone off that path or if he would have inevitably ended up there anyway. I don't know. I'm not educated enough about that. But it certainly doesn't seem like something like this would set somebody up for success doing construction work over the summer, you know, that might be good for a young boy who's kind of, maybe, I don't know, like, doesn't know any responsibility. So you're like, hey, get a job, you know, do some. Do some hard work and get out there and be outside and kind of have some responsibility, like, you know, encouraging your child to get out and get involved, like, like, that can be a good thing, but not for, like, sexual abuse. That just doesn't make any sense, you know, And I'm not saying that somebody's religious faith can't play a role in them healing or, or dealing with issues. I mean, I'm certainly not saying that, but saying that, like, at some point, it's time to bring in the professionals, you know, it's time to get serious. Yeah, like, you know, the, you know, I don't know, like, there's. There's. There's more resources, but. Yeah, so that's kind of where they left. This is, this is, though, I'll kind of close with this. This is something that Megan Kelly asked Jim Bob and Michelle and I, I. This was what stuck with me, too. And I think this is also going viral because people were like, oh, you Know, like, they knew that there were other predators in the family. Megan says, did you ever worry that the treatment didn't work, especially with so many young children in the house? Josh or Jim Bob? No. Josh was a change person, Michelle. And we still had those safeguards in place. I mean, like, it's just we were there. Were there a lot of things that changed in our understanding as parents with you? This, this first child, first son, you know, to come to this place in his life. We, like, there's things that we learned ever since that I think, you know what, we don't let boys babysit. We don't let, you know, they don't play hide and seek together. Two, don't go off and hide. I mean, there's just a lot of things that we put in place. And we said, you know, you're not alone in a room. When someone. With someone else, you're always out. Visible little ones don't sit on big boys, lapse. Or people you don't know, or even family members, you know, unless it's your daddy, you know, so there's just boundaries that we've learned, end quote. This is perhaps one of the more disturbing kind of glimpses into their worldview. I mean, am I crazy to say this, or is it fair to say that, like, it's not normal for. It's not. Normal's the wrong word. I don't want to say that it's not like most boys, young boys, teenage boys are not sexually abusing their siblings.
Kevin Greenlee
I think that's fair to say so.
Anya Cain
But the way they talk about this, it's like they can't trust any of their sons now. Right. It's like on some level they realize, like, the problem might be more widespread almost. And I think if the problem became more widespread, it was because some of this behavior was being normalized, you know, or. Or there were other issues that were not being taken care of. But it's like their solution is like, avoid. Don't trust your own brothers. You know, don't sit on their laps. Don't. They're not going to babysit you. I don't know why. I just find this disturbing. What do you think?
Kevin Greenlee
I can understand that interpretation. I can also understand a heightened sense of awareness of a particular issue if you've become aware of it. If I'm in a car accident and I don't have my seatbelt on afterwards, I'm going to be wearing my seatbelt every time I get into her car. You could argue they're just more hyper aware of this issue based on what they've been through with Josh.
Anya Cain
It's. It's. I agree. It's just like, I feel like instead of just saying Josh has something seriously wrong with him and we need to take drastic measures to help him work that out and protect our other children. Their solution was, like, any of our boys might be a predator. It's just what boys do, you know, boys are curious. Boys want to touch their siblings, you know, because they, like, that's what's sick to me. You know, it's like they're almost normalizing it of, like, this might happen again. You know, gotta be prepared. I. I hear what you're saying, and I think there might be an element of that to it, too. But I just feel like their reaction to this was really disturbing. And, you know, I remember when all of this happened, and it was very disturbing. And I guess I just. It's like, now that this stuff has come out about Joseph, with these allegations, it's just like, you have to. People are wondering what was going on in that family where you have possibly two people who are preying on children. Now, again, I don't know enough. I'm not a mental health professional. I do not know enough about child sexual abuse or, you know, differences between a child molester versus a someone who's a pedophile. And they, you know, I. I don't know. I don't know enough. I don't know whether it's like, something where it's like, well, there was just so many kids that, you know, maybe there would be two, or if it's something where, like, that can be behavior that's learned from an early age or preferences that are set from life experiences early on. I don't know. You know, and so I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna say like, oh, it must be this or that. I just don't know. But it certainly raises a lot of disturbing questions.
Kevin Greenlee
It does indeed.
Anya Cain
And thank you all so much for listening. We really appreciate it.
Kevin Greenlee
Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us@murdersheetmail.com if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.
Anya Cain
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Kevin Greenlee
Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the web@kevintg.com if you're looking to talk with
Anya Cain
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Anya Cain
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Date: March 25, 2026
Hosts: Áine (Anya) Cain & Kevin Greenlee
This episode of The Murder Sheet takes a deep, journalistic dive into the recent Arkansas criminal charges against former reality TV figures Joseph and Kendra Duggar. Known for their appearances on TLC's 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On, the Duggars are now embroiled in criminal legal proceedings: Joseph faces serious sexual abuse charges stemming from a 2020 incident in Florida as well as new Arkansas charges that implicate both him and his wife, Kendra. The hosts break down the timeline, the meaning and implications of the specific Arkansas charges, connect them to broader issues of family dynamics, past abuse scandals in the Duggar family, and analyze the handling of such cases.
Content Warning: The episode contains discussion of child sexual abuse (CSA) and related legal topics.
"It's a very broad definition that covers a lot of different behavior."
– Kevin Greenlee (10:51)
"If you're saying, well, false imprisonment, well, we're locking the kids in the room, that would certainly seem to fit the definition of false imprisonment."
– Kevin Greenlee (16:11)
Reporting (via People magazine) suggests charges stem from the use of door locks placed on the exterior of rooms in the Duggar home, likely bedrooms used by the children.
The arrangement was discovered during the police search.
Kendra's charges are explicitly not related to the original sexual abuse incident.
"I can tell you the arrest was a result of a home inspection and the door locks being on the exterior of the doors."
– Duggar family spokesperson to People magazine (15:56)
Both hosts discuss the risks posed by such locks (e.g., children unable to escape during a fire).
Anya reflects on the surprise that exterior child bedroom locks are illegal; Kevin clarifies many mental health professionals consider it abusive.
Although Kendra faces up to eight years (if all charges were stacked), as a first-time offender and on misdemeanors, significant jail time is unlikely.
Prosecution will likely be handled at the city, not county level unless felony charges arise.
"[People] are not wrong that it's up to eight years, but it just seems unlikely that that would be the case. ... most things are worked out in a deal versus a trial."
– Anya Cain (25:01)
Analysis of Fox News' Megyn Kelly interviews with Duggar family members (2015) following the public revelation of Josh Duggar’s sexual abuse of his younger sisters and a family friend.
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar described using locks on doors after Josh's abuse came to light — but it remains unclear who was locked in or out, and whether such safeguards were effective.
"They just say locks on the doors when it comes to the girls. ... Are the other girls locked in? ... Is it just that there's a lock on the inside so that Josh himself can't get in, but maybe the parents can, but the girls can get out? Or is it a situation where everyone's being locked in their bedroom at night?"
– Anya Cain (37:08)
Jim Bob and Michelle admitted they waited before seeking help outside the family (instead initially relying on a “mentor”), believing as parents they were not mandatory reporters and able to address it internally.
"As parents, you're not mandatory reporters. ... The law allows for parents to do what they think is best for their child."
– Jim Bob Duggar (paraphrased by Anya Cain, 44:00–45:55)
Ongoing revelations and minimization by parents about the seriousness of Josh’s actions; downplaying that safeguarding didn’t prevent further incidents.
"They minimized it by not seeking a serious intervention immediately and ... it actually victimized other girls because the incidents continued after Josh had apparently disclosed this to his parents."
– Anya Cain (39:54)
Host critique: the Duggars' approach to handling intra-family abuse prioritized “protecting their firstborn son at the expense of their younger daughters” (46:55) and did not focus on trauma-informed, victim-centered intervention.
Reflections on how patriarchal, insular cultures may not produce more abusers, but do create environments more likely to minimize or cover up abuse.
"The difference, though ... is the danger of a system that puts such an onus on young girls and women ... when predators exist, ... the impulse is to minimize and ... to sweep it away."
– Anya Cain (53:09)
"Even if the kids share a bedroom and it's like one lock, it would apply to four different kids. So it could still be four charges."
– Kevin Greenlee (15:55)
"I didn't know this was illegal. When we started The Murder Sheet, we didn't really know if podcasting was even going to work out for us..."
– Anya Cain (17:09)
"Many mental health professionals consider walking your children in a room to be potentially extremely damaging to them."
– Anya Cain (20:47)
"Intent basically makes things worse... it's not an accident. ... there’s been some deliberation."
– Kevin Greenlee, on difference between misdemeanor and felony charges (30:46)
"It's not like most boys, young boys, [and] teenage boys are not sexually abusing their siblings."
– Anya Cain (58:47)
"By not handling this more aggressively, they created a situation where more people got victimized..."
– Kevin Greenlee (42:18)
"Their solution is like, any of our boys might be a predator. It's just what boys do. ... that's what's sick to me. ... they're almost normalizing it..."
– Anya Cain (59:22)
This episode provides an incisive look at the complex legal and familial dimensions of the Joseph Duggar case, situating current charges in the context of longstanding patterns of abuse minimization and inadequate safeguarding within the Duggar family. By blending clear legal analysis with sensitivity to the issues of trauma, culture, and family systems, the hosts underscore the broader societal importance of how abuse—especially within closed or high-profile families—is addressed.