Joe Campbell, a Pentecostal preacher who for half a century ministered to thousands of children across four states, has been arrested on child sex abuse charges, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday.
Campbell was charged with one count of first-degree rape and one count of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, according to the charging document. U.S. marshals arrested him Wednesday morning at Camp Bell, his children's camp in Elkland, Missouri, and took him to the Greene County jail in Springfield, where he was awaiting transfer to Oklahoma. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
It wasn’t clear whether Campbell, 68, had an attorney. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. His arrest is a long-delayed breakthrough in a 40-year effort by some of his alleged victims to seek justice.
The charges come seven months after an NBC News investigation revealed a pattern of child sex abuse allegations against Campbell and repeated failures by pastors, police and prosecutors to intervene. Five women said he sexually abused them as children in the 1970s and ’80s when he was an Assemblies of God minister; nine others, including four men, said he showed them pornography, made lewd comments or touched them inappropriately during the same period.
Campbell’s rape charge appears to be tied to the alleged abuse of one of those women, Kerri Jackson. Jackson, now 53, says he molested her for years in Tulsa in the early 1980s, beginning when she was around 9. The attorney general’s office presented the case to a multicounty grand jury in Oklahoma City last week, and the panel returned the indictment — a milestone Jackson and some of the other women had pursued for most of their lives.
“I don’t even know how to react right now,” Jackson told NBC News moments after learning of Campbell’s arrest. “After all these decades, it’s a miracle.”
Past attempts to investigate Campbell in Oklahoma and Missouri failed after police and prosecutors said the statute of limitations had lapsed. But the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office says that clock stopped running when Campbell moved out of the state in the 1980s. To charge him in connection with a decades-old allegation, they’re applying a frontier-era statute that pauses the statute of limitations for suspects who flee or reside elsewhere.
Prosecutors recently used the same legal theory to charge former megachurch pastor Robert Morris with sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma in the 1980s. Morris, who founded the nondenominational Gateway Church in Texas, pleaded guilty in October to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with all but six months suspended.
In an interview, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond called Campbell’s alleged crimes “horrific" and said he anticipates more victims may come forward.
"I cannot even imagine, nor could I attempt to imagine, the weight on their hearts, their psyche all these years," said Drummond, who added that the charges should serve as a warning to faith leaders who exploit their authority to harm children. “If you commit that crime, we’re going to find you. We’re going to prosecute you.”
Campbell was taken into custody Wednesday morning by members of the U.S. Marshals Western District of Missouri’s Midwest Violent Fugitive Task Force Springfield Division. He did not resist or try to flee, said Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Felix Carrion.
“He surrendered to us as soon as we surrounded his house in Camp Bell,” Carrion said.
Oklahoma authorities opened their probe into Campbell after NBC News published its investigation in May, tracing allegations of abuse to his earliest years in ministry. The accusers described a magnetic preacher who cultivated trust in children and their parents, only to exploit it behind closed doors.
Children saw Campbell as an almost mythical figure, blessed by the Holy Spirit with the power to speak in tongues, cast out demons and heal the sick. He gravitated to girls from broken homes. They later described being molested in a church nursery, in Campbell’s car and at his home while his wife and children slept upstairs.
Beginning when some of them were still teenagers, the women reported Campbell’s behavior to pastors, law enforcement and child welfare officials, only to watch him deny the allegations and continue preaching.
Jackson was among those who came forward to church leaders. In early 1988, at age 15, she traveled to Springfield, Missouri, to testify before a panel of Assemblies of God officials. Jackson said the men asked her to describe the abuse in graphic detail and invited Campbell and his wife into the room to challenge her account. Despite having received letters from other alleged victims, which had been collected to add weight to Jackson’s story, the pastors allowed Campbell to remain in ministry in Missouri, clearing the way for him to abuse another girl, according to interviews and police records.
The Assemblies of God finally expelled Campbell the following year after Phaedra Creed, at age 14, reported that Campbell had been abusing her for months while she lived with him and his family.
Creed went to the police in 1989, and Campbell was charged with forcible sex with a minor. But after being harassed by church members, Creed said, her mental health deteriorated, and she backed out of testifying, leading to the charges’ being dropped.
For decades, as she watched Campbell continue working with children, Creed said, she carried guilt over her decision. She cried when she learned of his arrest Wednesday.
“I was speaking the truth then, and I’m speaking the truth now, but I’m no longer going to be silenced,” Creed said. “I am so happy justice will finally be served.”
In a statement following Campbell’s arrest Wednesday, Assemblies of God leaders said that the denomination's national office first learned of allegations against him in 1988 and that "his reported actions were duly reported to the appropriate legal authorities.”
"The Assemblies of God is grateful for all who have bravely shared their stories,” the statement said. "We continue to pray that justice will be served."
‘Pastors and Prey’: NBC News investigates sex abuse in Assemblies of God churches
- Part 1: Assemblies of God church leaders allowed children’s pastor Joe Campbell to continue preaching for years after he was accused of sexually abusing girls.
- Part 2: An Assemblies of God college ministry glorified a sex offender and enabled him to keep harming students.
- Part 3: The world’s largest Pentecostal denomination shielded accused predators in a 50-year pattern of sex abuse, silence and cover-up.
- Part 4: Dozens of boys say they were abused in an Assemblies of God scouting program that vowed to raise godly men.
Campbell continued ministering to children. Around 1990, he founded a nondenominational church and opened Camp Bell, a Christian youth camp in the Missouri Ozarks, where he ministered to thousands of kids over the decades. Campbell’s new church became a refuge for several convicted sex offenders, NBC News’ investigation found.
In 2016, he joined the PTL Television Network, a Christian station founded by disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, which broadcast Campbell’s teachings nationally until this year, when the network quietly removed years of his sermons from its website following NBC News’ inquiries. In a statement posted to social media after this article was published, PTL said Campbell was placed on administrative leave after it learned of the allegations and later “willingly resigned his position.”
“PTL has not reached, and does not express, any conclusion regarding the truth or accuracy of the allegations,” the statement said. “PTL respects due process and the presumption of innocence and trusts that God and the justice system will prevail in doing what is right.”
Campbell’s national influence and his decades of work with children sickened his accusers, who tracked his ascent from afar.
For the women, his arrest carried spiritual significance — the fulfillment of a mission they believe God entrusted to them decades ago.
Jackson said she long bore the weight of that responsibility like a ball and chain. The burden began to lift when she saw his mug shot.
“Finally,” she said. “We just needed someone to believe us.”
