Gary and Meghan Wiggins, who ran the Joshua Home, a religious gay conversion therapy camp for “troubled boys,” are now in Burnet County Jail facing a felony indictment for human trafficking. The couple has run similar “camps” in Alabama and Missouri where abuse has been reported.
CBS Austin reports: “Last July, a search warrant was granted for Joshua Home, which is affiliated with The Joshua Home Ministries, by the 33rd District Court of Burnet County, in July of 2018. … Evidence and information uncovered during the search led to emergency orders to remove the eight boys, ages 10 to 17, from the Joshua Home and place them into temporary CPS custody. “I can’t go into exactly what was going on,” Burnet County Sheriff Calvin Boyd told CBS Austin Monday.”
The Dallas Morning News reported on the couple’s previous “camp” in Alabama a year ago: ‘Wiggins previously ran the Blessed Hope Boys Academy in Alabama, where several boys who ran away from the facility accused him and other staff of punishing them by putting them in solitary confinement, making them exercise or refusing to give them food. Lucas Greenfield told ABC’s 20/20 that his mother sent him to Blessed Hope because he is gay and that Wiggins would beat the boys, saying “I’m going to get the demon out of you and make you straight.” No charges were filed after Alabama authorities investigated those allegations.’
The Wigginses fled Alabama for Missouri, and they opened a similar operation. They are being held in Texas on $100,000 bond.
