Broken Circle - Update

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Speaker 19 My parents were supposed to help these kids. You would expect this to be a good Christian place.

Speaker 19 No parent would have sent their child there knowing what happened.

Speaker 20 What was it like in there? It was hell. I was sexually abused.

Speaker 21 There?

Speaker 22 Yes, sir.

Speaker 23 I felt like I was nothing.

Speaker 24 There were numerous concerns about abuse going on at this facility.

Speaker 19 My dad would pick a girl up, bite her neck, throw her to the ground.

Speaker 18 He would trip you and shove you.

Speaker 27 Knock her out.

Speaker 28 Yes, sir. I mean it.

Speaker 19 I just posted it to TikTok.

Speaker 27 Knock her out.

Speaker 19 It just blew up.

Speaker 29 These allegations need to be looked into.

Speaker 28 How could I do this to my child?

Speaker 30 Thinking I was helping her. Your parents deny everything.

Speaker 31 And they say none of that stuff is true.

Speaker 19 What was going on was wrong. Something needed to be done.

Speaker 26 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 2 Here's Keith Morrison with Broken Circle.

Speaker 11 The sky is endless here at the edge of the California desert.

Speaker 35 It's her heaven.

Speaker 22 So far from the tree-tangled sky where she grew up, the woods of Missouri.

Speaker 12 And the yellow farmhouse where this story begins.

Speaker 2 Her father's farmhouse.

Speaker 34 His school. school.

Speaker 40 Do you love your dad?

Speaker 19 I do love my dad.

Speaker 4 Are you afraid of him, too?

Speaker 19 I'm scared of my dad.

Speaker 4 What a strange, strange thing to love the person you're afraid of, the father you're afraid of.

Speaker 41 It's because at one point in time I wasn't afraid of him.

Speaker 19 He wasn't what he is now.

Speaker 35 But she wasn't what she is now either.

Speaker 26 Which is why she's come back all these years later to the woods and the old farmhouse at her dad's school.

Speaker 19 Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, people can humanize.

Speaker 9 But we begin years ago and far away in a place called Ferris, Texas, where Teresa Tucker, a single mom of three, was no other word for it, desperate.

Speaker 6 It was about her middle daughter, Ashley, spiraling out of control.

Speaker 40 What were you worried about?

Speaker 45 Drugs

Speaker 45 and just rebellion, very mouthy.

Speaker 45 And so

Speaker 45 I didn't know where to turn.

Speaker 39 How old was she at the time?

Speaker 41 16.

Speaker 46 And on that December weekend in 2014, Ashley was getting kicked out of yet another rehab.

Speaker 42 So Teresa called her best friend, the pastor's wife, for help.

Speaker 41 It was my pastor and his wife that

Speaker 41 told us about Circle of Hope.

Speaker 44 Circle of Hope girls ranch and boarding school.

Speaker 12 It was in Missouri on a farm.

Speaker 6 The students followed a strict regimen of chores, schoolwork, and Bible study.

Speaker 18 Was it important to you that she go to a place where there was going to be some spiritual help?

Speaker 45 At this point, I didn't really care. I just needed her to have help.

Speaker 35 There are hundreds of private residential facilities across the country promising to reform troubled teens.

Speaker 6 They range from wilderness programs to therapeutic boarding schools to boot camps. And then there are those whose lessons derive from a very particular religious point of view.

Speaker 5 Circle of Hope was run by a married couple, Boyd and Stephanie Householder.

Speaker 7 At the heart of their program, they said, was a strict interpretation of the King James Bible.

Speaker 45 She was going to get schooling and she's going to get counseling. Ms.
Householder was a nurse and that she was going to

Speaker 45 facilitate her medications and things like that.

Speaker 6 Most important of all, perhaps, they had a free bed and could take Ashley right away for just $100 a month.

Speaker 5 To Teresa, it felt like a miracle of sorts.

Speaker 7 She signed a contract committing Ashley to an 18-month stay, and then she said goodbye.

Speaker 35 The pastor and his wife drove Ashley to Missouri.

Speaker 7 What was it like for you on the trip to that place?

Speaker 20 I was scared. I was really nervous.
I didn't know what to expect. My pastor and his wife kept telling me everything's going to be okay.
You know, you're going to get the help you need.

Speaker 18 What were your first impressions of the place?

Speaker 20 When we first got there, it was at night. It was really dark.

Speaker 42 And there they were in the dark, she said, waiting.

Speaker 48 Boyd and Stephanie householder waiting up for her.

Speaker 20 They were nice, they were sweet, they were laughing, joking. Like, you know, I was like, okay, this is a really good place.
I'm actually going to get help here.

Speaker 34 But as soon as the pastor and his wife left, said Ashley, the householders changed.

Speaker 20 They went from smiling and laughing to just straight face and

Speaker 20 that was it. I mean they didn't show any emotions or anything.

Speaker 9 Ashley didn't exactly know why, but she suddenly felt very afraid and she stepped deeper into the farmhouse, into a world of fear.

Speaker 50 What was it like in there?

Speaker 20 It was hell. It was scary.

Speaker 21 You were alone.

Speaker 20 It was basically while you're in there, it's survival.

Speaker 53 Coming up.

Speaker 25 They had girls scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes.

Speaker 54 Unless you were physically laying in bed to sleep, you were standing and you were facing a wall.

Speaker 21 All day, every day?

Speaker 55 All day, every day.

Speaker 25 I was like, what is this?

Speaker 49 Teresa Tucker had dispatched her daughter to a religious reform school in a tiny community called Humansville, Missouri, run by Stephanie and Boyd Householder.

Speaker 4 Teresa,

Speaker 56 did you have any idea what was happening in that place?

Speaker 21 No, I have no idea.

Speaker 8 Amanda Householder, however, did.

Speaker 43 Knew that very well.

Speaker 44 Boyd and Stephanie are her parents.

Speaker 7 Was your dad well suited to this kind of

Speaker 37 work?

Speaker 19 Yes, because he was a drill instructor. It was second nature to him to just put people in their place.

Speaker 1 Before he'd started working in reform schools, Boyd Householder had been a Marine, a trainer of Marines.

Speaker 51 Amanda had idolized her strong, commanding father.

Speaker 19 And when I was like two or three,

Speaker 19 I was a daddy's little girl.

Speaker 9 He'd take her for drives in his Jeep, she said, listen to music together.

Speaker 57 But things began to change, said Amanda, when her mother persuaded the ex-drill sergeant to start going to church.

Speaker 6 There are many versions of Christianity, of course.

Speaker 12 This one?

Speaker 15 Do you remember what the sermons were like or what the preaching was like?

Speaker 19 A lot of the sermons I remember were a lot based on fear and burning in hell for eternity.

Speaker 51 And some, she remembers, talked about how to discipline children, how to beat the sin out of them.

Speaker 19 It was to spare the rod, spoil the child.

Speaker 6 It was through someone he met at church that Amanda's dad got his first job at a Christian reform school.

Speaker 58 The family later moved to Missouri, where Boyd worked at Agape, a boarding school for rebellious boys.

Speaker 51 And in 2006, when Amanda was 15, he decided to open his own school.

Speaker 2 Only this one would be for girls.

Speaker 58 What was this place like, this physical house, the

Speaker 4 location?

Speaker 54 It was just a very run-down, homely place.

Speaker 7 Denae Hetrick told us she was sent there when she was in 10th grade.

Speaker 49 What had you been doing?

Speaker 52 Had you been committing crimes or something?

Speaker 54 I had never committed a crime. My mom found out that I had become sexually active and that I had tried marijuana for the first time.

Speaker 35 Maggie Drew arrived in 2007 when she was 15.

Speaker 25 Nobody was smiling. I saw the girls and everybody was so quiet and I was like, this is so dismal.
What is this?

Speaker 10 Maggie said the girls were afraid afraid from the minute they woke up.

Speaker 25 It was immediately get up, hurry, hurry, hurry, get dressed, get downstairs.

Speaker 4 For Bible study.

Speaker 26 And then chores.

Speaker 9 Bizarre chores.

Speaker 25 They had girls scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes. They had the girls wiping walls down.

Speaker 25 They had us picking weeds in the middle of the heat all day.

Speaker 20 They would say, you know, the Bible says this, the Bible says that. No, that is your interpretation of the Bible.
That's not what the Bible really says.

Speaker 40 Would you talk back to them like that?

Speaker 36 No.

Speaker 20 No, no, no, no. It was, yes, ma'am, because if we did, we got punished.

Speaker 51 Punishment.

Speaker 42 In fact, it's right here in the handbook.

Speaker 60 Boyd Householder promised to help reform especially difficult children by imposing biblical discipline.

Speaker 35 Tanae said it didn't seem so biblical to her.

Speaker 54 He'd sit in his chair like this and he'd be like, push-ups. And they'd start doing push-ups.
And it would turn into him going up and kicking their hands out from underneath him.

Speaker 6 Another punishment he called standing on the wall.

Speaker 54 Unless you were physically laying in bed to sleep, you were standing and you were facing a wall.

Speaker 21 All day, every day?

Speaker 54 All day, every day. You'd have to eat.
Like you'd be given like one of those old school plastic, like 80s-style lunch trays.

Speaker 54 I watched him at some points would walk past people on the wall and just hit their trays and their food would go everywhere.

Speaker 42 Boyd Householder denied that, said he didn't knock girls down while they did push-ups either.

Speaker 12 But those weren't the only kind of stories we heard.

Speaker 5 We spoke to more than a dozen former students and three former staff members whose experiences at Circle of Hope spanned more than a decade, and all of them told us that Boyd Householder didn't just subject his students to chores and push-ups and other creative punishments.

Speaker 9 No, they said, he was physically abusive.

Speaker 25 He would go up behind a girl and grab them by the base of the neck behind their head, like this,

Speaker 25 like right up behind your ears almost, and he would put a foot out and trip you and shove you, follow down and shove you with force face first.

Speaker 6 Carpet, gravel, the floor of the chicken pen.

Speaker 12 Didn't matter, said Maggie.

Speaker 25 And at that point, he put his fist on the side of your head and one in the middle of your back so that you couldn't get up.

Speaker 14 And there was more, said Maggie.

Speaker 62 Boyd ordered some of the girls to help, to put their weight on the students' pressure points.

Speaker 6 And they did.

Speaker 25 It was like one of those things where it's like dog eat dog, where if

Speaker 25 you don't fight your way to the top and do what you're told to do, then it's gonna come back at you.

Speaker 38 Tanae said she found that out the hard way, just once, when she tried not to press too hard on the girl she was helping restrain.

Speaker 54 He dropped his knees on top of my elbows. And once he did that and pushed his way on top of me, the girl then started screaming.

Speaker 54 And he looked at me and told me that if she wasn't screaming like that, once he let go of me holding her, that I was going to be laying next to her until I picked myself and said that I needed to make decisions of whose sides I was on.

Speaker 51 The householders told us they did restrain students when they were violent, but never deliberately inflicted pain.

Speaker 34 And Amanda?

Speaker 63 Well,

Speaker 58 these girls were her age.

Speaker 6 Some of them could have been her friends.

Speaker 39 Except, Amanda wasn't a student.

Speaker 44 And

Speaker 49 sometimes she was the one.

Speaker 51 handing out the discipline.

Speaker 19 I know I had power trips. I know there were certain girls my dad favored over me, and I didn't like them.
And so I treated them poorly in the sense I'd be like, just push, give me 25.

Speaker 49 Things she did, she said, things her father wanted her to do.

Speaker 6 Whose side was Amanda on?

Speaker 53 Coming up,

Speaker 64 a stunning new allegation.

Speaker 20 I was sexually abuse.

Speaker 20 There?

Speaker 4 Yes, sir. What What happens to you when that's going on?

Speaker 28 I felt disgusting.

Speaker 23 I felt like I was nothing.

Speaker 20 I felt like I was never going to be able to get out of that place.

Speaker 64 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 59 On Sundays, the students at Circle of Hope sometimes climbed into a bus. that drove them the 50 miles down Highway 13 to a church with a towering white steeple, Berene Baptist Church.

Speaker 7 Then the girls walked inside, dressed in their Sunday best and church smiles.

Speaker 32 The smiles were fake, said Maggie.

Speaker 25 We did whatever we had to to make them happy.

Speaker 38 Amanda watched it all.

Speaker 39 She knew, she said, what the students were hiding, how her dad treated them behind closed doors.

Speaker 56 What was it like to see your dad punishing other kids?

Speaker 19 I think that, to me, is the most traumatizing part.

Speaker 19 because to me

Speaker 19 it was just normal.

Speaker 34 Amanda told us her dad had never spared her the rod, beating her regularly as a child, using his belt after church.

Speaker 10 But hearing the girls scream as they were being punished.

Speaker 19 When you think of souls burning in a lake of fire for eternity, that's what these girls sound like.

Speaker 9 And the screaming is especially hard to forget, she told us,

Speaker 59 because she helped her dad.

Speaker 19 As a 15-year-old, I was forced to restrain the girls the same way my dad would.

Speaker 40 How'd that make you feel?

Speaker 19 I stopped. I refused to go when they yelled restrain.
I would always say, I have to make lunch or make dinner or I have dishes to do.

Speaker 40 Did you ever tell your dad, just go easy, go easy on these kids?

Speaker 19 I never had the guts. I never had the guts.

Speaker 49 When she was 15, she tried running away.

Speaker 52 failed.

Speaker 51 Her father denied punishing her, but after that, she said, things changed for her.

Speaker 19 I was put on the wall. Every time my dad walked past me, I was yelled at.

Speaker 19 I couldn't use the bathroom without permission. I wasn't allowed to eat until my parents brought me food.
I could not leave the wall outside my dad's office.

Speaker 56 Just standing facing the wall.

Speaker 19 Just standing facing the wall.

Speaker 40 How long?

Speaker 19 I think it was two months.

Speaker 12 Amanda was not like the other girls. No one would pick her up and take her away.

Speaker 9 So she counted the days until she was old enough to leave.

Speaker 51 And in 2009, when she was 17, she moved in with her grandma and then across the country to California.

Speaker 35 A new life, a fresh start.

Speaker 19 I had a really good job. I had my own apartment.
I was doing everything a person does.

Speaker 13 Even so, She wasn't quite ready to turn her back on her family.

Speaker 34 Not yet, anyway.

Speaker 57 In 2011, after a parent posted negative comments about the school online, it might surprise you who its loudest defender was.

Speaker 15 You were online defending your parents.

Speaker 36 I know.

Speaker 21 Right.

Speaker 40 Why were you doing that?

Speaker 19 I don't know other than I kind of felt guilty that it was my family. And so

Speaker 19 anytime

Speaker 19 that people would say something, I just felt the need. I need I didn't want my dad to go to jail.
I don't know how to explain it other than that.

Speaker 49 And you have to understand, there were some stories she never heard back then.

Speaker 7 She never met Ashley Tucker, the teenager from Ferris, Texas, who arrived at the ranch in 2014.

Speaker 20 Behind closed doors with just us kids, they were monsters.

Speaker 7 Ashley said it was in that culture of fear that the worst thing happened to her.

Speaker 20 I was sexually abused.

Speaker 34 There?

Speaker 21 Yes, sir.

Speaker 51 The boy was Amanda's younger brother, she told us. He was 15 at the time.

Speaker 12 She said it happened while she was doing chores in one of the buildings on the farm.

Speaker 20 He walked over there, he grabbed me, he pushed me up against one of the walls, and he actually ended up raping me right there.

Speaker 2 What happens to you when that's going on?

Speaker 20 I feel dis.

Speaker 2 I felt disgusting.

Speaker 23 I felt like I was nothing.

Speaker 20 I felt like I was never going to be able to get out of that place.

Speaker 60 She told no one.

Speaker 52 Couldn't tell her mom, she said, because she knew when she got calls from home, someone was always listening.

Speaker 20 They would have their, um, like their thumb over the little hang-up button.

Speaker 37 But then, a few months into her stay, Ashley took a chance.

Speaker 59 She told her mother that she was losing a lot of weight.

Speaker 45 You know, she told me that they hung up.

Speaker 28 So I called back.

Speaker 41 I'm like, what's going on?

Speaker 45 Oh, well, she's being rebellious. So they put her back on the phone, and that's when Ashley finally said, they're starving me.

Speaker 58 And the phone cut out again.

Speaker 46 Teresa had heard enough.

Speaker 16 As soon as she could, she got in her car and drove from Texas to Missouri to see for herself what was going on inside that yellow farmhouse.

Speaker 53 Coming up.

Speaker 21 I'm not gonna lie, I hated my mom.

Speaker 20 I hated her. I couldn't stand her.

Speaker 40 She was guilty?

Speaker 36 Yeah.

Speaker 28 You know, how could I do this to my child?

Speaker 36 Thinking I was helping her.

Speaker 49 Teresa Tucker left her Texas home before dawn to reach her daughter's school in rural Missouri.

Speaker 7 Ashley, she was sure, was in trouble.

Speaker 46 Teresa had never laid eyes on Circle of Hope Girls Ranch

Speaker 41 When we pulled up, I was just kind of astonished: like, wow, this is it? Really?

Speaker 51 She'd been so desperate to find Ashley somewhere safe, somewhere healing. She'd sent her there on blind faith.

Speaker 35 She didn't like what she saw.

Speaker 45 So, when Ashley came, I seen her.

Speaker 21 Take a deep breath.

Speaker 28 She had lost so much weight.

Speaker 52 She's was like, Bro, sick.

Speaker 21 So I hugged her and told her we're going home.

Speaker 48 But before they left, said Teresa, Boyd Householder handed her this document.

Speaker 45 I had to sign a paper that physically stated that she was not sexually abused and she was not physically abused there.

Speaker 18 But what a curious thing for a person to have you sign.

Speaker 34 Right.

Speaker 17 Did I actually tell you on the way home what she had been through?

Speaker 45 It was a very

Speaker 20 long eight hours.

Speaker 20 I told her basics.

Speaker 20 I didn't really go into detail. It was too hard.

Speaker 35 The householder's son denies Ashley's story of rape and she told us, as awful as it was, she considers him a victim too of the world he grew up in.

Speaker 5 She was at the time less forgiving of her own mother.

Speaker 20 I'm not going to lie, I hated my mom. I hated her.
I couldn't stand her. I couldn't stand looking at her.

Speaker 36 You feel guilty?

Speaker 36 Yeah.

Speaker 28 You know, how could I do this to my child?

Speaker 36 Thinking I was helping her.

Speaker 47 Teresa did not want it happening to anyone else.

Speaker 58 Ashley begged her, don't report the alleged rape.

Speaker 50 And so she didn't.

Speaker 48 But Teresa did call Child Protective Services, CPS, and told them about Ashley's other allegations of physical abuse.

Speaker 45 They stated that they were going to go out and check the facility and all that. Once they got back with me, they stated that they didn't see anything.
There was nothing they could do.

Speaker 6 Teresa contacted the sheriff's office, too.

Speaker 51 Same story.

Speaker 47 Nothing happened.

Speaker 13 What Teresa didn't know was that she was far from the first or only person to make a complaint to authorities about the Circle of Hope.

Speaker 58 A mother told us she reported the school the year after it opened.

Speaker 60 And as time went on, police records show more relatives and students told stories of abuse.

Speaker 1 About a girl covered in bruises.

Speaker 57 A runaway who said she'd been choked by Boyd householder.

Speaker 62 And four years later, another runaway who said Boyd had grabbed her by the throat.

Speaker 50 And several times, child protective services went out to visit.

Speaker 26 Except...

Speaker 54 I was told if I said anything negative that my life was going to be made miserable.

Speaker 59 Boyd coached the girls, said Denae, before they talked to CPS investigators.

Speaker 42 They were sure he was listening, she said, eavesdropping from his office on the other side of the wall.

Speaker 54 I remember being asked, like, are people being starved? And I was like, no.

Speaker 54 Because I was literally terrified about what would happen to me if I was going to start being the person that was starved next, because nothing ever came out of these.

Speaker 39 Amanda told us her parents had another way of handling investigators too.

Speaker 19 I was told when CPS came downstairs to take the girls outside and basically hide the girls from CPS.

Speaker 35 You hid the girls from the authorities who would check on whether or not they're okay.

Speaker 52 Yes.

Speaker 31 You know, your parents said they had an open door policy with CPS, that they could come in any old time.

Speaker 40 Is that not the case?

Speaker 19 CPS could come in, but like I said, I had to hide them.

Speaker 51 Amanda's parents denied that, said they never hid students from CPS.

Speaker 49 They said they told the girls to be honest with investigators.

Speaker 12 In any case, none of the reports ever resulted in any action.

Speaker 48 The school prospered.

Speaker 47 And parents like Teresa had no way of knowing about the complaints over the years.

Speaker 24 We have no regulations

Speaker 24 on any religious facilities in the state of Missouri.

Speaker 52 None.

Speaker 24 None. None.
Not at all.

Speaker 9 Carrie Ingle is a Missouri state representative and former social worker.

Speaker 56 Do these places even have to register with the state when they open up?

Speaker 40 No.

Speaker 24 We have no ability currently to even know about their existence. So I couldn't even tell you how many of these institutions exist in the state of Missouri.

Speaker 58 They're invisible.

Speaker 70 Correct.

Speaker 24 Until something bad happens.

Speaker 35 And it's not just Missouri.

Speaker 7 A 2021 NBC News investigation found gaps in regulation around the country, with at least 21 states that did not require religious boarding schools to tell their education departments that they exist.

Speaker 49 So, who is looking out for these kids?

Speaker 52 Currently,

Speaker 24 I would say that there's been a lot of buck passing.

Speaker 51 Systems, once entrenched, cruel ones especially, can seem unbeatable, impervious to change.

Speaker 2 And then,

Speaker 34 one little thing,

Speaker 2 like the first crack in a dam.

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Speaker 53 Coming up,

Speaker 64 fresh allegations of abuse from boys.

Speaker 70 I'd watch him grab students and chunk them to a wall.

Speaker 64 And a desperate move to alert the police.

Speaker 70 I tried to tell them, like, man, they're beating us.

Speaker 10 And the cop didn't believe you. No.

Speaker 64 When dateline continues

Speaker 14 amanda householder was living in the california desert she had her own babies now a new family

Speaker 19 she wasn't much interested in her old one why didn't you use your own name on social media for a while Because I was constantly getting hit up by girls that left Circle of Hope telling me

Speaker 19 about what was going on. And I didn't want to hear it anymore.
I was just

Speaker 19 in 2016 or 17, I got a message from a girl who

Speaker 19 I never heard of. And

Speaker 19 in the message, she's telling me

Speaker 41 my dad raped her.

Speaker 19 And I'm like, no.

Speaker 13 And yet, the message made her think back to a letter written years before, the words of another angry student.

Speaker 19 I was there when my dad got this letter, and it basically accused my dad of molesting her. And at that time, I was like, that didn't happen.
Like, I know my dad, that didn't happen.

Speaker 9 That letter writer was Maggie Drew, who'd come to Circle of Hope at 15 and stayed for five years.

Speaker 32 Boyd said it never happened.

Speaker 5 But now, all these years later, Amanda needed needed to know. Had Maggie been telling the truth?

Speaker 25 And she said, I know that you have no reason to lie to me.

Speaker 25 Like, just be honest.

Speaker 62 Maggie, who had never told her story to police, told Amanda how Boyd had groped her in his private office after she turned 18.

Speaker 25 And he'd grab my butt, or he'd grab my boob from the side. And then after, like, the last year or so that I was there, he started trying to kiss me.

Speaker 38 Amanda was devastated.

Speaker 1 She hadn't always agreed with how her dad ran the school, but this

Speaker 49 was worse than anything she'd imagined. She apologized to Maggie for not believing her all those years ago.

Speaker 52 You're okay. I know.
You're okay.

Speaker 41 I'm glad you wrote the letter, though. I'm really glad because...

Speaker 19 That letter is

Speaker 59 how I started just thinking.

Speaker 51 Amanda started thinking about all of it.

Speaker 7 How her parents had raised her, what she said she saw them do to the children at Circle of Hope.

Speaker 19 It wasn't until I had my own kids that I realized

Speaker 19 what was going on was happening to other people's kids.

Speaker 35 And she wanted to make things right.

Speaker 37 She and Maggie decided to track down the girls of Circle of Hope, as many as they could, listen to their stories, ask if they were were okay.

Speaker 25 And it was a big thing for a lot of them to be able to honestly, in a safe space, speak their truth.

Speaker 10 But it wasn't just kids at Circle of Hope who had stories about her father.

Speaker 26 Amanda began hearing from former students of Agape, the boys' religious reform school where her dad used to work.

Speaker 57 Colton Schrog remembered him very well.

Speaker 70 I'd watch him grab students and chunk them to a wall, grab them by by the neck and slam them on the rocks outside,

Speaker 70 get in their face yelling and screaming.

Speaker 58 Boyd denied that, but Amanda listened and remembered her childhood at Agape, watching boys being dragged off to a room known as the Padded Palace.

Speaker 19 When you open the door, it would go into this weird, dark, carpeted room, and that was the restraint room.

Speaker 19 And then all you would see is later that these boys were being drugged back down from this room, and they're all bloody and bruised.

Speaker 49 We talked to a dozen former Agape students and four former employees who told us they witnessed staff mistreating kids over a number of years.

Speaker 12 Agape did not respond to our requests for comment.

Speaker 57 On its website, it states its staff doesn't participate in corporal punishment and they have all been trained in proper restraining techniques.

Speaker 6 Colton insisted he was beaten there years ago and tried to report it to a sheriff's deputy who picked him up after he ran away from the school.

Speaker 70 I tried to tell him, like, man, they're beating us. And he didn't listen, cuffed me up, put me back in the car, and dropped me off back at Agape.

Speaker 70 And that's the last I ever heard of it. Never saw CPS, nothing.

Speaker 61 And the cop didn't believe you? No.

Speaker 61 Agape, like Circle of Hope, was seen in the community as doing good work, helping troubled kids.

Speaker 59 Amanda said it wasn't unusual to see deputies hanging out at Circle of Hope, sometimes doing target practice with her dad.

Speaker 10 Maggie said, boy, boasted about it.

Speaker 25 They had ties with all the cops in the area. If we ran away or said anything, we'd be immediately brought back, and nobody would believe us.

Speaker 32 It was hard for Amanda to imagine they would listen to her now, and hard to understand how her dad's school continued to operate.

Speaker 58 Because in 2018, investigators from Missouri's Department of Social Services issued two findings of abuse against Amanda's dad.

Speaker 6 One for physical abuse and one for sexual abuse.

Speaker 57 But remember, the religious school wasn't registered with any state agency. There was no license to suspend, no agency to go shut it down.

Speaker 24 This facility continued to operate is, I mean, it flies in the face of everything we know about child welfare policy.

Speaker 57 So, girls kept arriving at Circle of Hope.

Speaker 5 What could Amanda do?

Speaker 63 And then, a few unguarded seconds caught on tape, and that dam with the crack in it gave way.

Speaker 27 Coming up, knock her out.

Speaker 28 Yes, sir. I mean it.

Speaker 64 The TikTok video that triggered a firestorm.

Speaker 27 Knock her out.

Speaker 52 Wouldn't you like to hear that?

Speaker 36 Even now.

Speaker 19 Made me sick to my stomach.

Speaker 56 Amanda's dad, Boyd householder, the man she once idolized, was now a man she was determined to shut down. If CPS and the police weren't going to do it, Amanda decided, she'd fight back her way.

Speaker 56 This soft-spoken daughter went where she knew people talked the loudest.

Speaker 9 Social media, TikTok.

Speaker 19 If you ever suffered extreme abuse due to Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child.

Speaker 7 A platform known more for its stunts and jokes than what she had in mind.

Speaker 19 I want you to know that I see you'd survivor.

Speaker 56 She posted interviews with former students, answered strangers' questions.

Speaker 19 No, I do not.

Speaker 70 i absolutely do not regret it assembled her case against her parents day after day we need to let the whole united states know what boyd and stephanie are capable of and millions noticed especially after she posted this

Speaker 48 a 21 second video recorded by a family friend inside circle of hope on his cell phone Knock her out.

Speaker 28 Yes, sir.

Speaker 33 I mean it.

Speaker 48 The voice you can hear is Boyd Boyd Householders.

Speaker 6 He's telling his students to hit one of the other kids.

Speaker 27 Knock her out.

Speaker 67 Yes, sir. And that goes for any of the rest of you.
If she clinches her fist like she's going to hit you, that's a threat.

Speaker 27 Knock her out.

Speaker 71 Yes, sir.

Speaker 12 Knock her out.

Speaker 2 Would you like to hear that?

Speaker 34 Even now.

Speaker 19 Hearing his voice in that tone made me sick to my stomach.

Speaker 19 But seeing the video,

Speaker 19 I felt like I was right back at their house because that scene is exactly what happens every single time.

Speaker 19 My mom is in the background, like nothing is going on, playing with her dogs, like, oh, you cute little thing.

Speaker 19 And my dad is just

Speaker 68 going off, like.

Speaker 68 Nothing.

Speaker 16 Yes, sir.

Speaker 4 Yes, sir.

Speaker 19 All of the little yes, sirs. Yeah.
And if you don't say yes, sir,

Speaker 19 you can be slapped across the face. You have to say yes, sir.

Speaker 19 Wow.

Speaker 27 Knocker.

Speaker 44 21 seconds.

Speaker 60 That struck a nerve.

Speaker 71 Yes, sir.

Speaker 25 I was floored by the amount of support and like sharing and viewing that was like from the TikTok video. And I was like,

Speaker 25 they're listening. Like people are actually listening to us for once.

Speaker 26 Including a sheriff's deputy.

Speaker 6 After watching the video, he messaged Amanda.

Speaker 62 There are some people that want to help.

Speaker 29 These girls deserve to have their complaints investigated properly.

Speaker 56 That deputy's boss is Cedar County Sheriff James McCrary.

Speaker 31 What was it about the TikTok video that struck such a nerve?

Speaker 29 Well,

Speaker 10 some of the allegations were pretty serious.

Speaker 56 Serious enough, the sheriff said, to launch a brand new investigation.

Speaker 35 His deputy went back and compiled all those years of complaints that had never gone anywhere.

Speaker 56 Amanda connected him with former students and staff.

Speaker 59 He put together a case file.

Speaker 30 Is that a fairly thick file?

Speaker 29 Yeah, it's about five inches thick, probably.

Speaker 15 Are you seeing a pattern of behavior on the part of the people running that particular school?

Speaker 29 Well, it seems to be that way, yes. Having said that, I think we need to be patient and see where this investigation takes us.

Speaker 7 The sheriff's investigation was just the beginning.

Speaker 50 In August 2020, authorities removed two dozen girls from the school.

Speaker 35 Two weeks later, state investigators dissented with their own search warrant, and soon after, Missouri's Attorney General agreed to assist the local prosecutor with his investigation.

Speaker 35 Why did it take so long?

Speaker 9 You know, over the years,

Speaker 13 we took several of the reports, the complaints to the prosecutor's office.

Speaker 40 Any idea why they didn't proceed with any, you know, any further action?

Speaker 29 My belief, and what possibly

Speaker 29 occurred, is some of the alleged victims may have been afraid to tell us what was going on.

Speaker 15 If anyone thought that the Sheriff's Department was somehow protecting these schools when it knew that things were happening in there that wasn't good for those students,

Speaker 61 if somebody thought that, would they be wrong?

Speaker 43 They would be wrong, yes, sir.

Speaker 7 Finally, in September 2020, Amanda got the news she'd been hoping for.

Speaker 51 Her parents shuttered Circle of Hope for good.

Speaker 31 How did it feel to you to see that girls were being pulled out of that place and eventually it was closed down?

Speaker 34 Happy.

Speaker 15 What does it say to you that it takes a TikTok video to finally get authorities to move?

Speaker 40 to protect children.

Speaker 24 It tells me that the system is very flawed.

Speaker 46 Something Representative Kerry Ingle tried to fix.

Speaker 9 She introduced a bill requiring religious schools to register and be held accountable if they're found abusing kids.

Speaker 39 In July 2021, Missouri Governor Mike Parsons signed the bill into law.

Speaker 9 Several of Householder's former students sought accountability, too.

Speaker 39 Five Jane Does filed civil lawsuits against Boyd and Stephanie Householder.

Speaker 9 Two accused Boyd of sexual assault.

Speaker 38 In a written statement, the householders told us the great majority of their hundreds of students benefited from what they called their Christian-based discipline program and school.

Speaker 12 But while they denied liability, the couple settled the complaints for an undisclosed amount.

Speaker 61 In March 2021, Boyd and Stephanie Householder were both arrested.

Speaker 1 The Missouri Attorney General's Office filed more than 100 criminal charges against them. Boyd himself faced nearly 80 felony charges, including including multiple counts of statutory rape and sodomy.

Speaker 5 They both pleaded not guilty.

Speaker 12 As for one of their most vocal critics, their daughter Amanda, the householders told us they'd been estranged from her since 2014.

Speaker 46 Your parents did give an interview to one of the local papers.

Speaker 18 They said that you are addicted to drugs, that you're a Satan worshiper.

Speaker 56 What do you say to things like that?

Speaker 19 When I turned 18 and I was on my own,

Speaker 19 I

Speaker 19 did experiment with drugs, I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 19 When I had my kids, that changed.

Speaker 4 One of the things they said in the newspaper article was that people who are complaining about the school, they've been failures in their lives and you're a failure in your life, and you're blaming them.

Speaker 51 You need somebody to blame.

Speaker 19 I may not be successful in the sense that I am a millionaire, but my kids are happy. My kids don't have to fear me.

Speaker 41 So

Speaker 19 to me, I'm successful.

Speaker 51 And she told us she's not done speaking out.

Speaker 16 In the fall of 2020, she led a march to the gates of Agape, the boys' school where her dad worked years ago.

Speaker 19 It's time that we bring awareness to Agape.

Speaker 6 Awareness, yes, and accountability, too.

Speaker 51 In 2022, the Missouri Department of Social Services said it substantiated multiple allegations of physical abuse against the school's former director, though no criminal charges were filed.

Speaker 1 Three staff members also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault charges.

Speaker 5 Another employee, the school physician, is facing child sex crime charges.

Speaker 6 He pleaded not guilty.

Speaker 46 Finally, in January 2023, Agape announced it was closing its doors.

Speaker 63 A school spokesperson said the decision was voluntary and due solely to a lack of finances.

Speaker 19 Most of the Agape guys were telling me it will never get shut down. You will never see legislators doing anything.

Speaker 19 And now that it's happening, they're all like, oh my gosh, like, wow, something can be done.

Speaker 51 As for Boyd Householder, he will not stand trial.

Speaker 39 He died in June 2024 after a long illness.

Speaker 46 Amanda never reconciled with her father, and in a statement about his death, she said, Well, the little girl inside me is sad to hear of my dad's passing.

Speaker 39 I feel even more heartbroken for those of us who were sexually, emotionally, and physically violated by him for years and years.

Speaker 9 Stephanie Householder is still scheduled to stand trial.

Speaker 39 She maintains her innocence.

Speaker 9 Ashley Tucker is trying to rebuild her life after the horrors she said she suffered as a student at Circle of Hope.

Speaker 46 She kicked her drug addiction and she plans now to become a paramedic.

Speaker 57 She's a mother herself and calls her daughter her angel.

Speaker 14 Now you know how your mom felt about you.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 20 Now

Speaker 20 I realize that, you know, she was just trying to help me.

Speaker 20 That's it. She just wanted to help me.

Speaker 8 Help is what Amanda Householder is offering, too.

Speaker 50 She continues her mission to stand up for those kids she once knew.

Speaker 36 Hey Amanda, get my office.

Speaker 7 And the others coming after them and to forgive herself as well.

Speaker 57 That's all for now.

Speaker 32 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 56 Thanks for joining us.

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