Missouri doctor bound over for trial after second judge hears of alleged child sex crimes

For the second time in a month, longtime Agape Boarding School doctor David Smock sat in a courtroom Friday and listened to graphic details regarding the child sex crimes he’s accused of committing.

And for the second time, a judge bound him over for trial on all counts involving two young male victims. Associate Judge Gary Troxell also ruled that Smock will remain held without bond and set his arraignment for May 16.

Smock now faces upcoming criminal trials in two southwest Missouri counties — Greene and Cedar — where he is charged with 15 counts of molesting and sexually abusing two boys, one starting at age 11 and the other at 13. All the counts are felonies, and he has pleaded not guilty to each one.

A special prosecutor with the Missouri Attorney General’s office questioned two witnesses during the doctor’s preliminary hearing Friday inside a Cedar County courtroom, just down the street from Smock’s now-shuttered medical clinic. At times, the testimony was explicit, describing in detail what the boys told a forensic interviewer and state investigator.

Smock, who turned 58 on Friday, faces 12 child sex abuse counts in Cedar County, including statutory sodomy, sexual misconduct, child molestation and enticement of a child. The majority of those counts are related to one alleged victim, identified in court as C.M.

Amy Kaelke, a forensic interviewer with the Children’s Center of Southwest Missouri, said she interviewed C.M. on Oct. 13, 2020.

“Did the victim say if he knew why he was there?” Jennifer Coffin, an assistant attorney general, asked Kaelke.

Kaelke said the boy told her he was at the Children’s Center to “speak about something that happened to him and happened for a long time at Dr. Smock’s house.”

C.M. moved into Smock’s home when he was 13 and left at some point when he was 14, court records and testimony show.

In the two-hour interview at the child advocacy center, Kaelke said that C.M. described multiple incidents that allegedly occurred, including one when the teen was showering.

“Dr. Smock came into the shower with him and washed him,” Kaelke said. And, according to the boy — who was reportedly 13 at the time — Smock attempted to sodomize him, she said.

In another incident, Kaelke said, C.M. told her he was lying under the covers on a bed and Smock laid “on top of the covers” and put his hand on the boy’s genitals.

“This happened more than once,” Kaelke testified.

C.M. also told her that on another occasion, Smock said he wanted to give him oral sex, then did.

Coffin, the assistant attorney general, asked how frequently C.M. said that occurred.

“This happened every couple of days,” Kaelke said the boy told her.

Kaelke also interviewed a second alleged victim, who was identified as M.B. and was 11 at the time he said he was abused by Smock.

The boy told her that one day after leaving the bathroom at Smock’s house, he saw Smock sitting on the bed. The doctor told him to take off the towel and lie on the bed, saying he was going to give him a “physical exam,” Kaelke told the court.

“He did as he was told,” Kaelke said. Smock allegedly touched the boy’s private parts “and just moved them around,” she said.

“He said Dr. Smock got up and told him not to tell anyone.”

During Friday’s hearing, Smock’s attorney, Stacie Bilyeu, repeatedly said there were discrepancies in both boys’ testimony. One of those instances was related to M.B. saying he witnessed Smock sexually abuse C.M. But C.M. told investigators that M.B. never witnessed any sexual abuse.

M.B., however, had described the incident to Kaelke. He said he was in Smock’s basement playing video games when C.M. was showering, and Smock hollered at him, saying he wanted to show him something. When M.B. went to look, he said, he saw C.M. “standing in the doorway with no clothes on.”

M.B. said Smock was standing behind C.M. and holding the boy’s genitals and that C.M looked right at him.

“(M.B.) said he froze, he was nervous and didn’t know what to do,” Kaelke testified. “...He went back to play his video game.”

On cross examination of Kaelke, Bilyeu said C.M. denied that M.B. ever witnessed any sexual abuse. Bilyeu also brought that up on cross examination of Heidi Fox, an investigator with the Missouri State Technical Assistance Team.

Bilyeu asked Fox if she ever questioned C.M. about that discrepancy.

Fox said she did not.

Bilyeu also asked Fox about C.M. saying that a man named Jonathan Petrie witnessed Smock abuse him while the three were traveling together.

“I’m assuming you went to talk to Jonathan Petrie,” Bilyeu said.

“I did not,” Fox said.

Bilyeu called only Petrie — who has known Smock for about 20 years and manages the medical clinic — to testify at Friday’s hearing. He said he never saw Smock abuse C.M.

Smock also faces three child sex abuse counts in Greene County. Those charges allege that Smock groomed C.M. and eventually sodomized and molested the boy at a rental house in Springfield.

Smock was bound over for trial in Greene County Circuit Court following a preliminary hearing there last month, with his next court date scheduled for April 29.

The investigation began on Oct. 7, 2020, when Fox received a request from an investigator with the Missouri Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division regarding a child molestation case reported to the Cedar County Sheriff.

Cedar County prosecuting attorney Ty Gaither initially received the case on Smock and reviewed it. But Gaither told The Star that because “we knew Dr. Smock” and Gaither had been to Smock’s clinic, including to get a flu shot, he thought he should have another prosecutor look at the case.

Gaither sent it to Vernon County Prosecuting Attorney Brandi McInroy for review, and she requested assistance from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office.

Smock, who was arrested in Arkansas on Dec. 28, has been held on $250,000 bond in the Greene County Jail since Jan. 5 and is on a hold without bond for Cedar County.

Smock came to Missouri from Arizona and in 2006 built an 11-bedroom mansion with an indoor pool and gymnasium in rural Cedar County between Stockton and Jerico Springs. He operates the Stockton Lake Walk-in Clinic, which has been closed since Jan. 6 “due to unforeseen circumstances,” according to its Facebook page. The post said the clinic would remain closed “until further notice.”

Smock holds active medical licenses in Missouri, Arizona and California. Property records show he also owns a home and runs a medical clinic in Arizona.

In Cedar County, officials at Agape Boarding School have not responded to repeated requests for comment. In January, the school released a statement to The Star saying that news of Smock’s arrest “saddens us deeply.” But officials also attempted to distance the school from the doctor and said he was never an employee or board member of Agape.

A key Agape staff member, however, described Smock’s close relationship to the school in a March/April 2020 newsletter, saying that the school is “medically overseen by Dr. David Smock, M.D.”

The Star has reported extensively on Agape and other unlicensed Missouri boarding schools over the past 18 months and investigated Smock’s close ties to the school. In October, The Star reported that two of five Agape staff members charged in September with assaulting students listed Smock’s Cedar County mansion as their address. And last week, The Star reported that the other three staff members charged in that case — including Agape’s medical coordinator — were still working at the school.

Smock, wearing gray striped jail clothes with his hands cuffed in front of him, smiled as he was escorted into the courtroom on Friday. Shortly after that, Gaither walked over to him and jokingly said, “You’ve looked better.”

Smiling, Smock replied, “I have, thank you.”