On July 25, investigators from four Texas agencies descended on a small religious boarding school outside tiny Bertram Texas.
Inside were eight boys ages 10-17, all of whom were from out of state. With them was Pastor Gary Wiggins, who is no stranger to having his schools raided by authorities.
The multi-agency investigation led Texas authorities to remove all eight boys at the school and transfer them into the custody of child protective services.
The raid came at the end of several weeks of investigations by a total of 11 Texas agencies into allegations of abuse, neglect, labor violations, fraud, licensing violations and human trafficking.
Wiggins, the man at the center of it all, has not yet been charged.
Back in 2016, Wiggins was running the Blessed Hope Boys Academy in Seminole, Ala. It was raided by sheriff's deputies in December 2016 after two boys escaped to a neighbor's house and said they were victims of abuse. All 22 boys, ages 8 to 17, were removed from the school, which advertised itself as a religious school for troubled boys.
Wiggins denied any abuse occurred and charges were never filed. Five months later, Alabama passed a law that would allow the state to inspect schools like his. Previously, boarding schools that claimed a religious exemption to state law could operate with virtually no oversight and follow no regulations regarding the health and safety of the students at the school.
Wiggins shuttered Blessed Hope and took off for Missouri, where there are no such regulations. He brought with him some of the boys who'd been at Blessed Hope. In a remote area of southwest Missouri near a town called Pineville, he opened the Joshua Home.
But a few months later, the McDonald County Sheriff's Department began getting calls. After a sheriff's deputy went out to do a well-child check on one of the students, Wiggins packed up again and headed for Texas. The sheriff's deputy said the child seemed to be fine.
Burnet County Sheriff Calvin Boyd told reporters on July 27 that his office was looking into whether the Joshua Home may have been using the boys illegally for a lawn care service and a moving company, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
The Sheriff's department is looking into the Joshua Home, the nonprofit Joshua Home Ministries, Joshua Home Lawn Care, Joshua Home Movers and JJW Home Services. Anyone with information can call 512-756-8080 and cidadmin@burnetsheriffcom.