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Days after Joseph Duggar’s arrest on charges of molesting a child, his wife was arrested on child endangerment charges.
Immediately, some jumped to conclusions, wondering if Kendra aided and abetted her husband’s alleged crimes.
Others preached caution, suggesting that her arrest was a mere coincidence.
The truth is somewhere in between. Because the charges aren’t related … but the timing of the arrest was no coincidence.
Why was she arrested for ‘child endangerment’ at such a specific time?
Us Weekly‘s report offers an explanation for why authorities arrested Kendra Caldwell so shortly after Joseph’s arrest for molesting a 9-year-old girl.
“After his charge, they automatically do a home study if minors live there. They came to her house,” an inside source explained.
Joseph and Kendra are the parents of four young children. Two of these children had already been born before the 2020 family vacation during which he allegedly preyed upon a young girl.
So Kendra’s arrest is not directly related to her husband’s charges — but the timing of the arrest is not a coincidence, either.
Her arrest stems from a disturbing discovery that investigators found when searching the Arkansas residence.
Kendra and Joseph are now both facing second-degree false imprisonment charges, a Class A misdemeanor.
“Apparently, they had two rooms where the lock of the doorknob was on the outside instead of inside,” the insider stated.
“They arrested her and took her kids for that,” the source explained, “saying it’s evidence that she wrongly detains her kids.”
Second-degree false imprisonment simply means illegally detaining someone.
Doing so in the first degree would mean confining someone in a dangerous space, such as without access to food or water.
Will she go to prison?
Their charges of second-degree endangering the welfare of a minor seem to be related.
It’s honestly no surprise for members of the cult to not be good parents.
If more Duggar homes were searched by authorities, there would likely be more arrests.
Our society as a whole does not tend to take children’s welfare seriously. This is reflected in our legal system, which bends over backwards for “parents’ rights” and all but ignores that children are people, too.
On the false imprisonment charge, Kendra faces a potential sentence of 1 year behind bars and up to $2,500 in fines.
Truth be told, it seems unlikely that the legal system will hold Kendra accountable for this in a meaningful way.
Typically, even parents who violently abuse their children face limited repercussions — with courts pretending that attending anger management groups means that a person is “cured.”
There are cases of parents sentenced to prison for locking up their children, but this usually means that the children were emaciated or died, or that a host of other crimes were committed in the process.
Perhaps a full investigation will uncover more. Some question whether Joseph only ever had one alleged victim, and whether Kendra’s alleged crimes stopped at doorknobs.
The silver lining, we suppose, is that Joseph’s charges reflect one of the few non-lethal crimes against children that courts do tend to take seriously. Even with his reported confession, it’s likely that he will face a prison sentence.
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Immediately after Joseph’s arrest, his disgraced brother Josh put out a statement defending Joseph, calling the allegations against him “false.”
Meanwhile, the relative silence from Kendra had longtime Duggar-watchers wondering if Kendra will divorce him.
That could still happen. But the same twisted and extreme beliefs that make the cult an ideal stalking ground for predators also forbid divorce.
(That is no coincidence; the ideology of keeping women and children vulnerable and confined is pretty consistent, actually.)
The Duggar family spent years working to present a certain image to the world. But the rot underneath was always there.
