Pastor asks for money to help Circle of Hope owners fight ‘false, demonic accusations’

A southwest Missouri pastor is urging people to help fund the defense for the Circle of Hope Girls Ranch owners accused of abusing girls at their Christian boarding school.

The plea comes as attorneys on both sides prepare for Boyd and Stephanie Householder’s preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Cedar County Circuit Court. Already in court hearings, prosecutors with the Attorney General’s office have raised questions about the Householders’ attorney, who was indicted in 2019 on charges that he bribed a witness in a murder case.

Pastor Jerry Pyle, of Bible Baptist Church of Vernon County, sent a note this month to “Supporters of Circle (of) Hope and Boyd and Stephanie Householder.” The couple — along with students of their Cedar County school — began attending the church in June 2020 when their facility was still open.

“I know that prayer is where this battle is going to be won,” Pyle wrote in the May 7 letter. “However, I believe it is our responsibility to do what we can to aid them in clearing their names of these false, demonic accusations. We can not do it alone. We absolutely need your help in your prayers, but we need your help financially.”

Pyle did not respond to requests for comment about his letter.

At this week’s hearing, state and local prosecutors will detail their case against the couple, who are charged with 102 crimes, including statutory rape, sodomy and physical abuse.

Both have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bond in the Vernon County Jail. In his letter, Pyle said they were in “solitary confinement.” The couple told The Star in September after they decided to close the school that the allegations were all lies and that they would never hurt a child.

Cedar County Prosecutor Ty Gaither said in an email to The Star that the Attorney General’s office is handling the preliminary hearing and “the Householders will be there.” In other hearings, the couple have appeared from jail.

Pyle regularly has gone to see the Householders since their arrest in March.

“I can not begin to tell you how it grieves me to only be able to see and visit with these two faithful Christians once a week separated by glass while talking on a phone,” Pyle wrote.

“We have been able to liquidate some of COH assets along with some of Boyd and Stephanie‘s personal assets,” he wrote. “However, we neither have the money needed to retain a lawyer nor the money to post bail if it is set. We are now at the point that we need additional financial resources…”

The Householders are represented by Springfield attorney Adam Woody, whose own history was brought up by prosecutors in a March bond hearing.

Woody is under criminal felony indictment, accused of bribing a witness in a murder trial and committing perjury, one of the two assistant attorneys general handling the case told the court.

“That case will likely be resolved before this one, and even if it isn’t, if I were a defendant and my attorney was under a criminal indictment for bribing a witness, I would be concerned that my attorney would be focused more on that,” the attorney said. “And I would certainly raise that on appeal — that his attentions are divided. And if he is found guilty of that and disbarred, then we’re starting all over.”

Woody, whose attorney has told media that his client is innocent, argued that the Householders know about the charges filed against him. And he said the AG’s office was using “scare tactics” to remove him from the Circle of Hope case.

“I’ve taken in lots of cases since then,” Woody told the court. “And that’s not going to have any bearing whatsoever on our ability to represent… I’ve taken in hundreds — hundreds — of cases since that charge has been filed. Every defendant has been notified. I’ve been able to effectively represent each one.”

Boyd Householder, 72, was charged in Cedar County Circuit Court 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, who turns 56 on Friday, 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 Householders started attending Bible Baptist Church in Nevada in June, Pyle said, at least two months before authorities removed the girls from the school in mid-August.

Bible Baptist Church is an independent fundamental Baptist church. IFB churches teach followers to separate themselves from worldly influence. Some IFB churches have supported Circle of Hope financially over the years, and their pastors have recommended the boarding school to parents of troubled girls.

Like numerous other Christian boarding schools across the country, Circle of Hope was inspired by Lester Roloff, the late independent fundamental Baptist pastor seen by many as a pioneer in the effort to deliver wayward teens to Jesus. Roloff’s reform schools have been the subjects of serious abuse allegations over the years that include whippings and extended periods of isolation, and some that have been shut down have packed up and reopened in other states.

In a letter to supportive pastors last year, Boyd Householder — whose now-deleted Twitter account was Gunslinger4God — said he wanted to explain “the attacks being made against us on Social Media.”

He 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.”

At the Householders’ bond reduction hearing in March, Woody asked the court to release Stephanie Householder on her own recognizance. He requested that Boyd Householder be released on a $10,000 bond but said if that wasn’t acceptable to the court, they would agree to a $40,000 bond.

The prosecutors asked that the couple continue to be held without bond but added that if the court was inclined to set one, they were requesting a $3 million cash-only bond for Stephanie Householder and $5 million for Boyd Householder.

Prosecutors said the Householders were a flight risk because they were receiving tuition payments from a number of students and getting donations from churches to subsidize their ranch, which they said meant the couple had the resources to flee.

Woody argued that there was “certainly no evidence that they’re going to pack up and leave” and said dozens of people were prepared to testify to the couple’s upstanding character.

In his May 7 letter, Pyle said that the Householders brought the Circle of Hope students to church services and activities and the girls participated in Sunday school as well as other youth activities. On Wednesdays, Pyle said, the church divides into small groups for prayer.

“Each one of our ladies would take two or three girls to pray with them,” Pyle wrote. “There were never any accusations of wrongdoing against Bro. Boyd or Mrs. Stephanie by the girls in any of their interactions with our church members.”