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n Idaho mother who says she trusted a now-shuttered Christian boarding school in Missouri to rehabilitate her son struggling with behavioral issues has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the abuse and brutal gang rape by staff members he suffered at the school caused his early death last year at the age of 29. The mother, Kathleen Britt, said in court documents cited by The Springfield News-Leader that she sent her late son, Jason Britt, to the Agape Boarding School in Stockton, Missouri, in 2009 so he could experience a "safe, kind and Christian environment free from drugs and alcohol." What...

Sixteen former Agape Boarding School students who sued for alleged abuse at the southwest Missouri school have settled their cases for undisclosed amounts. The number represents about two-thirds of the two dozen lawsuits filed against Agape Baptist Church, the organization that operated the now-closed school near Stockton in Cedar County. Court records show that the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their cases “with prejudice,” meaning the suits cannot be filed again. Four cases were dismissed in January and refiled in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri and four are pending in state court. The newly settled cases, filed since...

A Christian boarding school in Missouri that’s been under intense scrutiny over abuse allegations announced Wednesday that it will close later this month due to financial hardship. Agape Boarding School in Stockton has been the subject of state and location investigations and several lawsuits from former students. It will stop providing service effective Jan. 20, according to a statement from the school for boys. Attendance at Agape plummeted after abuse allegations surfaced. Agape had 132 students 13 months ago, its lawyer, John Schultz said. It now has 12. The school’s focus now is “on getting the boys who remain in...

W hen Andrew Breshears arrived at the Agapé Boarding School in 2018, he was a sandy-haired 12-year-old who weighed less than 100 pounds. He enjoyed watching movies, listening to Elvis, and playing soccer with his friends. “I was sheltered,” Breshears says. But he struggled at home. When he was told he couldn’t live with his mother after her stint in rehab, he threatened to kill himself, and another person from the household. His grandparents sent him to a mental hospital, then to Agapé. At first glance, the facility for “at-risk and unmotivated boys” — a Baptist institution in Stockton, Missouri...

Kentucky State Police responded to a first-degree criminal abuse complaint Oct. 24 at the Pilgrims Rest Ministry of Reconciliation, an Ohio County boys boarding school affiliated with the fundamentalist Baptist faith. Details of the incident are unclear. Both KSP and the state’s Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) have declined to provide information about the case — citing an ongoing investigation into the facility. “Premature disclosure of records generated in the course of this active investigation of alleged physical and sexual abuse of juveniles, at this early stage, would do irreparable harm to the investigation,” said KSP’s official custodian of...

The former director of Agape Boarding School pleaded with a Cole County judge on Monday to keep himself off the state’s central registry of child abuse and neglect, so he can keep working with children. Bryan Clemensen was the long-time director of the Stockton-based reform school for troubled boys until last month, he testified Monday. The Missouri Department of Social Services says it substantiated five preponderances of evidence findings against Clemensen — one count of child neglect and four of physical abuse. The department is seeking to add Clemensen’s name to the state’s child abuse and neglect central registry, a...

OZARK, Mo. (AP) — Two men who were facing felony charges alleging they abused boys at a private Christian boarding school in southwest Missouri have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, and the case against a third was dropped. Scott Dumar, 46, the medical coordinator at the Agape Boarding School near Stockton, pleaded guilty Thursday to two misdemeanors and was placed on two years probation. Everett Graves, 40, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor. The case against Chris McElroy was dropped after the alleged victim did not appear at a preliminary hearing Thursday, The Kansas City Star reported. They were among five staff...

Agape Boarding School’s longtime leader recently filed for a temporary restraining order against the state to keep his name off Missouri’s Central Registry for child abuse and neglect. Bryan Clemensen filed a motion for the restraining order on Nov. 22 in Cole County Circuit Court. The next day, Judge Brian Stumpe granted the order and the Missouri Department of Social Services, which maintains the registry, received a summons. “It is therefore Ordered that Respondent be and is hereby restrained from listing Petitioner on the Missouri Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry,” according to a docket entry on the state’s online...

An Alabama man charged last week with 215 counts of possession of child pornography once worked at a boarding school in Missouri and had been a children's minister in the state of Ohio, according to reports. The Rainsville Police Department says Steve Robert Wukmer, 66, was arrested at his place of employment in Fort Payne just before noon Nov. 15. The investigation into Wukmer began earlier in the month after police received a tip. Wukmer once worked at Agape Boarding School in southwest Missouri, former students told The Kansas City Star. "This guy was a full-time staff member at Agape...

Editor’s note: this story has been updated to clarify the appeals court order, which halts any action in the case until further notice. The Missouri Court of Appeals has ordered a Cedar County judge to halt all further action in the Agape Boarding School case until it issues a final decision on a recent motion. “You are directed to refrain from taking further action,” the appellate court wrote in a ruling that was issued Wednesday, “ ... until further order of this court.” In what is called a preliminary writ of prohibition, the appellate court said the only action Associate...

A California mom arranged for her estranged son to be abducted after he applied for emancipation, with the youngster then driven 27 hours to a boarding school. Shana Gaviola, 35, is said to have embarked on the scheme in August 2021 on learning the unnamed 17 year-old boy wanted to legally break away from her. Gaviola, of Fresno, has been charged with violating a protective over the incident by a federal court, and remains in custody. The boy, who had successfully applied for a restraining order against Gaviola, was approached by a 'transfer team' from the Agapé Boarding School for...

In around 1485 or 1486, Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli came up with probably his most famous painting, the "Birth of Venus." Botticelli’s choice of subject was nothing new. Venus and her equivalents, including the Greek Aphrodite and the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, are among the most common figures depicted in art. Archaeologists dub one of the oldest of all sculptures, the “Venus of Willendorf,” on the assumption that this 25,000-year-old work was intended to represent a Stone Age fertility goddess similar to the Venus of later tradition. In virtually all civilizations, a Venus equivalent plays a prominent role in myth, legend...

A newly surfaced video that shows what many describe as abuse of a boy at Agape Boarding School in the late 1990s has renewed calls to close the school. In the footage, a man who former students say is Frank Burton — a long-time pastor at the Cedar County school — can be seen forcing a boy wearing a bathrobe to run alongside him around the perimeter of an outdoor volleyball court, which also served as the school’s boot camp area. It’s been common practice at the school to make boys wear robes if they were on suicide watch or...

Students at a controversial school for troubled boys were made to roll around in camel waste to 'build character,' outraged parents have told DailyMail.com. Agapé Boarding School for Boys in Stockton, Missouri, is currently facing 19 lawsuits alleging torture, starvation, as well as sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. Five new lawsuits were filed in the state last week by former students from California, Texas, Florida, and Mississippi, who attended the school from 2014 until now. The students accuse Agapé Boarding School and the Agapé Church of negligence, battery by staff and fellow students, torture and starvation, according to legal documents...

CEDAR COUNTY, Mo. (KY3) - Several more former students of a boy’s Christian boarding school in Cedar County are filing lawsuits. The group claims a wide range of abuse, from starvation to physical and emotional abuse. ”For nearly three decades, students at Agape Boarding School have experienced emotional, mental, physical and sexual abuse,” the group’s attorney, Ryan Frazier, said in a statement to KY3 on Friday. “Today, we filed petitions in Cedar County for nine of those victims, to pursue justice for the trauma they endured and to have their voices heard.” Robert Bucklin went to the school from age...

HARRISON, Ark. (KY3) - A Stockton, Mo doctor who has had a warrant out for his arrest was captured Tuesday night in Harrison, Arkansas. David Smock, 57, was booked into the Boone County Jail just before 8:30 on Tuesday night. He is currently being held on out of state charges. He has a court appearance for Wednesday morning in Greene County. KY3 News learned of eight new charges filed by a special prosecutor, including one count of sexual misconduct, five counts of statutory sodomy, one count of child molestation, and a count of child enticement. Smock also faces charges of...

STOCKTON, Mo. (KY3) - A special prosecutor filed eight new charges against a Stockton doctor wanted for sex crimes while associated with the Agape Boarding School. Dr. David Smock, 56, is on the run from law enforcement. KY3 News learned of eight new charges filed by a special prosecutor, including one count of sexual misconduct, five counts of statutory sodomy, one count of child molestation, and a count of child enticement. Smock also faces charges of second-degree statutory sodomy, third-degree child molestation of a child less than 14 years of age, and enticement or attempted enticement of a child less...

<p>STOCKTON, Mo. (AP) — A Christian boarding school in southwest Missouri has been sued three times this month over allegations that students were abused.</p><p>The latest of the lawsuits was filed Tuesday in Cedar County Circuit Court on behalf of a Texas teen with autism and bipolar disorder. It accuses Agape Baptist Church, which operates Agape Boarding School, of negligence, infliction of emotional distress and battery by staff and other students, The Kansas City Star reports.</p>

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. (Psalm 103:7-10)Our God is love. He doesn’t merely have love, He is Love. To resist the LORD is to resist Love, and goodness and truth. Throughout the sacred scriptures God has revealed his heart of love to mankind, and the greatest revelation of Divine Love of all, is the cross of Jesus Christ. In that singular act of...

God is Love (I John 4:8)And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (EXODUS 34:6-7)God is Love. Yet, that is not all that the Bible says about God. Scripture also reveals that, God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all....