A Missouri boarding school doctor by the name of David Smock has been arrested in Harrison, Arkansas for multiple counts of child sexual misconduct. According to the Kansas City Star, authorities declared Smock a fugitive for over a week when he was found and taken into custody from the border of Missouri, where he lived and worked.
Smock was the physician for Agape Boarding School for a long time. Agape is a controversial Christian school in Stockton, Cedar County that has been in scrutiny and probe due to several employees being accused of assault. The total number of charges against school employees were a total of 13 third-degree felony assault charges.
A special prosecutor on Wednesday added one count of sexual misconduct of a child younger than 15, five counts of statutory sodomy against a child of less than 14, one count of child molestation of a child younger than 17, and a count of child enticement to the list of growing charges against the Missouri boarding school doctor.
According to Smock’s attorney, he was ready to turn himself in and only went to Louisiana to meet his son when he got taken into custody at the Missouri border. The attorney Craig Heidemann said, “Dr. Smock’s concern is that law enforcement has wrongly painted him as a fugitive when in fact he’s a COVID victim trying to get back to deal with these charges,” referring to the fact that he was ready to turn himself in and deal with the charged but got COVID-19 upon returning to Missouri when he got taken to Arkansas jail.
If convicted of the most serious charges against him, the Missouri boarding school doctor could get life in prison. He had been treating boys from the Christian school at his clinic in southwest Missouri for years.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt released a statement regarding the case saying, “The details of the alleged crimes, in this case, are shocking and horrific. And I look forward to working with the Special Prosecutor for Cedar County to obtain justice in this case. … Protecting the citizens of our state, especially our children, is of paramount importance to me as Missouri’s Attorney General.”
