Amy Duggar King believes her cousin Josh Duggar, who is serving a 13-year prison sentence for charges related to child sexual abuse materials, deserves a painful life in prison.
“I hope every day there is absolute torture for him,” Amy Duggar King told People. “I really hope that, because what he watched and what he was viewing for his own fulfillment is those kids experiencing torture.”
Her statement comes just 11 months after Josh Duggar was found guilty and sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison convicted of sending and receiving child sexual abuse materials.
Prosecutors believe Josh had more than 200 pornographic images of children on his computer, including child sex abuse images and videos of minors as young as 18 months up to 12 years old (the same ages as all seven of Josh’s children with wife, Anna).
Amy Duggar King added: “He deserves every second in there, and I hope he gets a longer term. I hope he messes up again.”
Josh Duggar’s Addictions
Josh has a long history of sexual abuse. TLC’s hit show, 19 Kids and Counting was canceled in 2015 after allegations surfaced that Josh, the oldest of the 19 children, had molested five girls, including four of his sisters. Months later, he admitted to cheating on Anna and having an addiction to pornography.
In November of 2019, Duggars’ then-business, a used car lot, was raided by Homeland Security Investigations after first being flagged by a Little Rock, Ark. police investigator in May of that same year. Three password-protected electronic devices were obtained during that search warrant containing dozens of images depicting nude minors and child sex abuse materials.
Special Agent Gerald Faulkner revealed extensive new details about Duggars’ arrest during a hearing in 2021.
Faulkner, who has worked more than 1,000 child exploitation cases in the last 11 years, testified that materials found on a computer belonging to Josh Duggar included files that were the “top five worst I’ve ever had to examine.” Faulkner wouldn’t even read the names of the downloaded files, which were graphic and disturbing.
Investigators found a program on Josh’s desktop called Covenant Eyes, which allows a user to “quit porn” by reporting to an accountability partner — in this case wife Anna—if the user visits porn sites. Duggar allegedly installed a Linux partition, which divided the computer’s hard drive into two isolated sections to get around triggering a Covenant Eyes report.
Despite the overwhelming evidence against Josh and the history of his abuse, a source told People that Anna believes her husband is innocent.
With Josh’s track record in mind, Amy says she doesn’t “know if he’s doing any work” on himself amid his imprisonment.
“I have not spoken to him, and I will not. I will not,” she shares. “When you just cross those evil lines like that, there is no coming back. I just think there’s no coming back.”
Amy Duggar King also has no contact with Josh’s wife Anna, despite offering her and their seven children a place to stay following Josh’s entry into prison last year.
King, who is the mother of one son, has previously said she fears for Josh and Anna’s children.
“Who wouldn’t worry about that? My heart goes out to all those innocent, sweet victims… It breaks my heart,” King said. “I really hope justice is served.”
“I will just say that whatever you do in the darkness comes out in the light. If you’re going to look at such disgusting and sickening images, justice has to be served.”
Josh Duggar’s Long History of Sexual Abuse
In June of 2023, Amy Duggar King appeared in the Amazon Prime docuseries, Shiny Happy People, which took a deep dive into the Duggar’s fundamentalist Christian movement, the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP). King, who grew up close with the Duggars, was often featured on the TLC show as “cousin Amy,” who was often labeled a “crazy, rebellious, and wild child” for doing things like wearing pants, listening to the radio, and giving front-facing hugs—all of which were against the rules for Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s 19 children.
King was starkly contrasted against her conservative Duggar cousins in more than 100 episodes of the hit reality TV series, a choice that King says was an intentional move by her uncle Jim Bob Duggar.
“My uncle had control over a lot of the show, [including] what happened and who was on it,” she told Vanity Fair. King thinks the series intentionally used her as a distraction from the uglier realities of life as an IBLP family. “Why else would I be targeted like that? There was a major thing going on that could be detrimental to the wealth of the show, and the popularity of the show.”
The major problem being Josh Duggar’s sexual addictions. King tells Vanity Fair she found out about the allegations that Josh molested at least four young girls including his sisters, “like the rest of the world”—on the news, when word broke in 2015.
“I was pissed,” she says, and immediately heartbroken for her cousins. “I felt like I wasn’t worth telling … that they didn’t want to protect me. They didn’t want anyone to know, [and] they wanted to keep it inside their little bubble. Secrets breed in the IBLP. Things are hidden.”
None of the young girls, including sisters Jill Dillard, Jessa Seewald, Jinger Vuolo, and Joy-Anna Forsyth, pressed charges against Josh.
In the Amazon Prime docuseries, Shiny Happy People, it’s revealed by close friends of the Duggars that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar knew about Josh’s sexual addictions long before it was ever publicly announced in 2015.
They also went to great lengths to cover their son’s tracks and excuse his “juvenile behavior.”
In 2006, Jim Bob admitted his son had molested young girls four years prior. The couple had sent then-14-year-old Josh to an ILBP Training Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, for “treatment” in 2003. Josh stayed at IBLP for 90 days. It was during this time that Jim Bob, Josh, and the church reported the molestation to authorities.
Arkansas State Trooper Joseph T. Hutchens took the report but did not report the case to his bosses.
Hutchens, now 78, was arrested in 2005 and pleaded guilty to nine counts of viewing child pornography in 2007. He was sent to prison for five years but was released on parole in 2008. In 2012, his probation was revoked and he was back in the Arkansas Department of Corrections system, sentenced to 56 years for distribution and possession of child porn, he’s also listed as a habitual offender.
It wasn’t until 12 years later that Josh’s actions were brought to light publicly, and even then, there were very little repercussions.
