Circle of Hope owners assail witness testimony on Missouri reform school investigation
A retired Cedar County deputy told a judge Thursday that she wasn’t allowed to talk to many Circle of Hope Girls Ranch students when she went to the school in 2018 as part of an earlier investigation.
Ruth Belcher, who worked for the sheriff’s department then, was the third witness in a preliminary hearing for Boyd and Stephanie Householder, who are charged with 102 crimes — all but one of them felonies — that include statutory rape, sodomy and physical abuse.
After detailing parts of her investigation, Belcher attempted several times to get the attention of Associate Judge James Nichols from Barton County or prosecutors. Finally, she did.
“Could you advise him (the Householders’ attorney) to tell his client not to mouth the word ‘lying bitch,’” Belcher said.
At the end of the nearly six-hour hearing, Nichols bound the couple over for trial on all but two of the 102 counts against them. Of those, 99 are felonies. Their arraignment is scheduled for June 14.
Belcher’s earlier investigation did not lead to any charges, but the results are now part of the Missouri attorney general’s case against the couple who ran the girls school for 14 years.
During the hearing, the Householders took vigorous notes on legal pads, often shaking their heads at the testimony. Stephanie Householder laughed several times at testimony about former students’ allegations.
The couple, in striped jail jumpsuits, were shackled and handcuffed at the waist. Each carried a Bible in their right hand.
A Cedar County deputy who was a former student and staff member at nearby Agape Boarding School, where Boyd Householder trained for five years, unlocked their handcuffs once they were seated. The deputy, Robert Graves, who is the son-in-law of Agape owner James Clemensen, then stood guard in the courtroom for the first hour of the hearing.
Witnesses gave numerous accounts of alleged abuse inside Circle of Hope. Among the examples shared Thursday morning were putting students in painful restraints, swatting them, withholding food as punishment and putting one girl in a neck brace for not holding her head up while being forced to stand and face a wall.
Former students told authorities that the Householders said social workers and law enforcement officers were “of Satan’s work” and could not be trusted.
Are you “one of Satan’s soldiers?” Belcher said one student asked her.
An investigator with the State Technical Assistance Team, with the Missouri Department of Social Services, detailed her 2017 interview with a former student who alleged Boyd Householder sexually abused her on many occasions.
The incidents occurred on a table in Stephanie Householder’s office, on top of a freezer, in a storage building and during inspections of students’ rooms, said Kim Grebner, the STAT investigator. Those allegations comprised 22 of the 102 counts against the Householders.
Defense attorney Adam Woody pointed out that students’ parents had told the Circle of Hope owners when the girls enrolled that they had discipline problems that included lying, violence and disrespect. He also noted that parents had initialed an application form saying they acknowledged that certain disciplinary measures, including restraints, would be used.
The Householders were arrested in March after a months-long investigation by the attorney general’s office. They have been held without bond in the Vernon County Jail ever since.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt called the alleged abuse “extensive and horrific” when he announced the charges.
“With 16 victims so far, we believe this to be one of the most widespread cases of sexual, physical and mental abuse patterns against young girls and women in Missouri history,” he said at the time.
Boyd Householder, 72, was charged with 79 felonies, including six counts of second-degree statutory rape; nine counts of second-degree statutory sodomy; six counts of sexual contact with a student; 56 counts of abuse or neglect of a child; and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. An additional count of second-degree child molestation is a misdemeanor.
Stephanie Householder, 55, was charged with 22 felonies, including 12 counts of abuse or neglect of a child and 10 counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
The Star has spoken to many young women who have lived at Circle of Hope and parents who have sent their daughters there.
Girls said they were told they would go to hell if they ever wore pants and were allowed only two changes of clothes per week. They were allotted four squares of toilet paper when using the restroom, and their rare phone calls with parents were strictly monitored and cut off if they complained or didn’t say the “right” things. School was not a priority, they said, and at times they had no teachers.
A search warrant request obtained by The Star also revealed that a 12-year-old girl told authorities she was chained inside a room at the school for two weeks.
In a two-hour interview with The Star in September, the Householders insisted all the allegations were false and that they’ve never hurt a child. Boyd Householder has blamed the problems on his daughter and mother-in-law, who he said had turned their daughter against them.
Their daughter, he said, “has determined that she will force Circle of Hope Girls Ranch to shut down.”
In recent years, the state has substantiated six reports of abuse and neglect involving Circle of Hope, according to the Department of Social Services. Two were for neglect, one for physical abuse and three for sexual abuse allegations.
But because the faith-based facility is exempt from state licensure, the state did not have authority over Circle of Hope’s operations.
The property sat on 35 acres along Highway N about seven miles from Humansville in Cedar County. The Householders closed the boarding school shortly after authorities removed about two dozen girls in mid-August amid an investigation by the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office.
The attorney general is now investigating Agape Boarding School, a Christian home for troubled boys, after The Star spoke to dozens of former students who allege, physical, psychological and sexual abuse by staff and classmates.
Reports of abuse at Circle of Hope, Agape and other unlicensed boarding schools in Missouri prompted lawmakers to propose legislation implementing some oversight of these facilities. The bill passed the legislature last week and went to Gov. Mike Parson, who has until July 15 to act on it. If signed, the measure will become the first in nearly four decades to regulate faith-based reform schools.
This story was originally published May 20, 2021 at 1:48 PM.
