STOCKTON (MO)
KTVI FOX 2 [St Louis, MO]
January 16, 2025
By Kevin S. Held
A mother’s wrongful death lawsuit filed against a now-closed Christian boarding school alleging her son died after suffering sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of employees can move forward, according to a federal judge.
U.S. District Court Judge Doug Harpool issued the ruling earlier this month.
Kathleen Britt of Idaho filed the lawsuit in October 2023 in the Western District of Missouri federal courts on behalf of her son, Jason Britt. The abuse is said to have occurred in 2010 while Jason attended Agape Boarding School in Stockton, Missouri. Stockton is located in Cedar County, approximately 50 miles northwest of Springfield.
Kathleen said her son suffered ongoing mental anguish in the years after leaving the school. She said he became a weightlifter and took steroids with the goal of becoming strong enough to never be a victim again.
Jason wrote a suicide note, his mother said, but he ultimately died of heart and kidney failure in February 2022. He was 28.
The suit describes the school as “a concentration camp or torture colony cloaked in the guise of religion” and claims that employees and members of the Cedar County Sheriff’s Department suspected or knew of the abuse and either ignored or concealed the crimes.
Cedar County Sheriff James “JimBob” McCrary and Deputy Sheriff Robert Graves are named in the suit, along with facility employees Julio Sandoval, Brent Jackson, Scott Dumar, Jon Wilke, and David Wilson.