Why Did a Family Flee Their Home — And Why Is Joseph Duggar Trying to Go Back?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:07)
America's favorite family, right? There's a word that showed up in a Florida courtroom filing that has stuck with me. The word is, I feel like I did it before, ding, abandoned.
Joseph Duggar's attorney used it in a motion asking a judge to lift a restriction that keeps his client away from certain properties in Arkansas. The argument is pretty straightforward. The family of the girl at the center of this case has left their home. They were gone. They had the language of the filing abandoned their residence, no longer residing at the previous listed address. And because the family was gone, well, Joseph wanted permission to go back, relive the magic.
Not to contact the girl, not to be anywhere near her, just to to mow some lawns, fix some sheetrock, tear down an old shed. Hopefully doesn't have any un-pure thoughts or un-pure intentions while thinking of nine-year-olds while he's doing that. Hopefully not. Hopefully nothing triggers that. He wants to maintain six properties that he owns, all within 500 feet of where that family used to live. Well, the hearing happened in Bay County, Florida. Joseph appeared via Zoom. Properties are in Arkansas. That's where he lives. These properties are near where he lives. The hearing lasted less than five minutes. The judge denied both of his requests. And that should have been the end of it. A routine procedural hearing, a minor legal setback, a footnote in a case heading towards trial. But I keep coming back to that word abandoned, not what the defense filing means, but what actually happened to a real family in the real world. That word covers up more than it describes. If you're just catching up here, here is where things stand. Joseph Duggar is 31 years old. He's the seventh of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's 19 children. He was a cast member of 19 Kids and Counting and the spin-off Counting On both on TLC. He married a woman named Kendra Caldwell in 2017 They have four children together, all under the age of eight. Joseph is charged in Bay County, Florida, with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious behavior involving a minor. One of those counts involves a child under 12, is classified as a life felony under Florida law. He's pled not guilty. His trial is expected in August. So that's where things sit legally. Obviously, you've been playing along here and following along. You've heard the stories. You've heard the allegations. You've heard the alleged confessions that were made to the father of the victim.
Who happens to be is in-law.
Add that to the equation of shit.
The charge is stemmed from allegations that Joseph repeatedly harmed a nine-year-old girl during a 2020 family vacation to Panama City Beach. You know, like you do. Both families were on the trip and according to the arrest affidavit, the girl told investigators that Joseph asked her to sit on his lap multiple times. He later asked her to sit beside him on a couch and cover them both with a blanket. She described the incidents as happening several times over the course of the trip. She said she felt confused and uncomfortable. She said Joseph eventually approached her and apologized. And then the incident stopped.
So for any of you folks out there that are super religious, oh, I don't know, the Huckabees that love to call these folks, your friends, your family, whatever the fuck, fuck buddies. I don't know what the fuck you call them. I don't know, I don't know what the hell you call them.
I'm not insinuating anything there. What I am saying is this.
How do you stand next to people like this?
And with a straight face.
Tell the world. Oh, it's a good thing he's behind bars. He can spread the ministry. And that goes for anybody. I'm not speaking directly of Huckabees or anything like that, but they certainly have had their involvement and their moments of standing up for the Duggars publicly when people have questioned them. Mike has some lovely clips of that out there online if you'd like to see what that looks like in action. Maybe you were bamboozled. Maybe if you were tight with this group or watch that show. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how you hold two parallel things like that in the same sentence and then somehow do the mental gymnastics. And we've seen it from people that are tight with these folks. It don't have to be.
Write letters to the prisoners, to the men that have been charged. Write letters to JosephDuggar, Joseph Josh, that God's working in mysterious ways. You can now, you can spread the word behind bars. Yes, isn't that, isn't that lovely? That's some magic thinking right there. I would call it deplorable, disgusting, predatory thinking, but that's my opinion. What's yours?