‘He did not turn himself in.’ Agape doctor facing child sex charges captured in Arkansas
David Smock, the longtime doctor for Agape Boarding School, was behind bars in Arkansas after authorities captured him Tuesday night in a town not far from the Missouri border.
Smock, 57, was taken into custody a week after a warrant was issued for his arrest on multiple felony child sex crimes. He was arrested in Harrison, Arkansas, at 8:29 p.m. Tuesday and booked into the Boone County jail on an “out of state” hold, according to the county’s online jail records. Smock’s mugshot shows him in a white T-Shirt.
Authorities have considered Smock — a Stockton physician who has treated students at boarding schools in Cedar County for years — a fugitive for several days.
“He did not turn himself in,” Mike Stokes, deputy U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Missouri, told The Star late Tuesday. “He was captured.
“There was a sighting in that town, and deputy marshals and local law enforcement went to that area and took him into custody.”
A bond hearing has been scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday in Greene County Circuit Court in Springfield where he faces three child sex charges. Smock’s attorney, Stacie Calhoun Bilyeu of Springfield, has filed a motion requesting that the court set bond or release Smock on his own recognizance.
In Greene County, Smock is accused of second-degree statutory sodomy; third-degree child molestation of a child younger than 14 years of age; and enticement or attempted enticement of a child younger than 15 years of age, according to court records.
On Tuesday, charges filed by the Missouri Attorney General’s office became public. Last week, Smock was charged in Cedar County with eight felonies, including four counts of statutory sodomy or attempted sodomy — deviate sexual intercourse — involving a child younger than 14; and one count of second-degree statutory sodomy or attempted sodomy. He also was charged with one count each of sexual misconduct involving a child younger than 15, fourth-degree molestation of a child younger than 17 and first-degree stalking.
The probable cause affidavit in Cedar County has been sealed. But The Star obtained the one outlining charges in Greene County earlier this week.
Prosecutors there allege Smock groomed and then sexually abused a teenage boy — when he was 13 — inside a rental home the doctor owned in Springfield.
Greene County prosecutors filed the felony charges on Thursday and requested the arrest warrant, asking that Smock be detained pending trial. The court ordered Smock to be held without bond once arrested, saying it found reasonable grounds to believe that Smock “will not appear on summons” and “is a danger to the crime victim, the community or another person.”
The court also found “by clear and convincing evidence” that “no combination of nonmonetary conditions and monetary conditions will secure the safety of the community or other person including the victim(s) and witness(es) and the Court, therefore, denies bail herein and orders the defendant detained pending trial and any other stage of the criminal proceeding,” according to a docket entry in the case.
The Star has reported extensively on Agape and other unlicensed Missouri boarding schools over the past year and investigated Smock’s close ties to the school. In October, The Star reported that two of five Agape Boarding School staff members charged in September with assaulting students listed Smock’s Cedar County mansion as their address.
Many former Agape students said some boys injured by staff or other schoolmates during physical and sexual assaults would be taken to Smock’s clinic, where Agape officials claimed they had been hurt while playing sports. No questions were asked, they said.
As a doctor, Smock is required by law to report suspicions of abuse or neglect.
This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 10:25 PM.
