The estranged daughter of the former Circle of Hope Girls Ranch owners is suing her parents for forced labor, beating her for their own sexual gratification and making her punish other students at their southwest Missouri boarding school.
Amanda Householder alleges that her parents — Boyd and Stephanie Householder — made her work at Circle of Hope in Cedar County as a teenager and help discipline students, including the use of painful physical restraints that sometimes lasted for hours. She also accuses her parents of beating her while she was naked, making her do repeated exercises for hours on end and force-feeding her until she'd vomit, then making her eat that.
Some of the childhood abuse, she said, also occurred at Agape Boarding School, where Boyd Householder worked before opening Circle of Hope. She alleges that Agape's founder, who died in October, was aware of the abuse for years but did nothing to stop it and failed to report the allegations to authorities.
