Is there even more trouble brewing in the Duggar household?
The stars of “19 Kids and Counting” are once again under investigation by the Arkansas Department of Human Services, and just like in a previous investigation in 2006, they have refused to cooperate, a report in this week’s In Touch Weekly reveals.
According to the magazine, a representative for the Washington County DHS called police on May 27 this year asking for assistance after he was refused entry to the family’s home, where he was supposed to be checking on the welfare of a minor.
It is unclear what brought the caseworker to the Duggar household, as details of the case aren’t available to the public, but it calls into question the family’s insistence in its interview with Megyn Kelly last week that there were no further shocking developments to come as part of the family’s molestation scandal.
“No!” the family’s second-oldest daughter, Jill, quickly answered when the Fox News host asked if a “family secret” was going to come out.
It was In Touch Weekly that first reported that Josh Duggar, now 27 years old, had molested five young girls, four of whom are his sisters, when he was a teenager.
As the magazine pointed out, the family’s latest refusal to cooperate with authorities is a repeat of how they reacted in 2006 to investigators looking into Josh’s disgusting behavior. In that instance, family patriarch Jim Bob refused to make his eldest son available for questioning, telling authorities that Josh “had hired an attorney and will not be coming in for an interview.”
This was after the family took their time in even reporting the molestation — even though Josh had repeatedly confessed what he had done to his parents — to authorities in the first place. The magazine also notes that the next year, in 2007, Josh sued DHS to make sure all records pertaining to the case “were sealed and kept in confidentiality.”
The lawsuit was launched a year before the family began its ascent to reality TV fame with the premiere of the then-titled “17 Kids and Counting” on TLC.
News of the investigation, whatever it may be into, doesn’t bode well for the future of the family’s show, which was pulled from the air by the network in light of the molestation revelations.
“They know what’s at stake here,” a source told the magazine. “They’re trying to do everything they can to stop the bleeding. But it may be hopeless.”