Watch: Kendra Duggar’s Caldwell Family Breaks Silence on Joseph Duggar’s Arrest
Until a month ago, Joseph Duggarwas mainly known as one of the 19 Kids and Counting bunch.
Like 10 of his siblings, the seventh oldest of Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar‘s children got married and had his own family. He and wife Kendra Duggar were pretty low-key, posting the occasional date night or travel snap in between milestones as they welcomed four kids in five years.
But now, like his brother Josh Duggar, who’s serving prison time for receiving child pornography, Joseph has been accused of a sex crime. And his and Kendra’s world subsequently turned upside down.
On March 31, the 31-year-old pleaded not guilty to molesting a 9-year-old girl while on a 2020 vacation in Panama City Beach, Fla. Meanwhile, he and Kendra, 27, are also facing charges of endangering the welfare of a minor and false imprisonment in the family’s home state of Arkansas.
After Joseph spent two weeks in custody while being extradited to Florida, the couple have since reunited as they await what comes next.
“God is gonna get us through this one day at a time,” Kendra, 27, reassured her husband in a March 23 jail call. “Every time I look up the staircase I melt into a puddle, so we’ve decided to take it one day at a time, one moment at a time.”
But leaning into faith has always been part of their life plan, ever since Kendra and Joseph met at her family’s church when they were kids.
Joseph Duggar/Instagram
They’d known each other for five years and had been getting closer as friends for about six months before he proposed a courtship in March 2017.
After securing her father’s permission to start courting his daughter, Joseph invited Kendra to go with him to a car auction so she wouldn’t suspect he planned on making it a special day.
“Once we’re finished up with the auction,” he shared on a September 2017 episode of the 19 Kids and Counting spin-off Counting On, “I’m going to take her to the house where I was actually born…And then I’ll pop the question to her and ask her if she’ll start a courtship with me. It’ll show her where I started my life and then maybe we’ll be able to start a new portion of life with her there.”
He was admittedly “pretty nervous,” but also confident enough to come prepared with a silver promise ring engraved with both their names.
Kendra looked truly surprised, noting as she accepted Joseph’s ring, “It means we can hug.”
But by the time this aired on TLC, Joseph had not only popped the question, proposing—with the bride’s blessing—during his sister Joy Anna Duggar‘s May 2017 wedding to Austin Forsyth, he and Kendra had also already swapped vows.
After tying the knot Sept. 8 at First Baptist Church in Siloam Springs, Ark., then-23-year-old Joseph said being married was “an amazing feeling.”
“It’s something that I’ve always dreamed of,” he told People, “to have a wife and to raise a family in a way that honors the lord. We are to very excited to see what God has in the future for us.”
They started growing their family tree right away, welcoming son Garrett in June 2018.
“The more I get to know you I fall in love with you in a deeper way,” Kendra wrote in tribute to Joseph on their second wedding anniversary. “I love how patient and loving you are.”
At the time, she was pregnant with their daughter Addison, who was born that November. They welcomed daughter Brooklyn in February 2021 and son Justus in 2022.
But the couple haven’t posted to their all-family, all-the-time Instagram account since November 2021, when they marked Addison’s second birthday.
In a March 25 jail call recording obtained by E! News, Joseph referenced “health issues” Kendra had in the past. Calling it a “miracle” she was getting by as she packed up their home with an eye on turning it into a rental property, she asked Joseph to pray for her health, noting, “I’ve just been really, really fatigued in the last two days.”
Josh’s wife Anna Duggar, who shares seven children with her imprisoned husband, told Joseph in a March 21 email that she had spoken to Kendra, and she’d sounded “strong.”
Except for, Anna continued, “when she talked about it being a month before she can see the kids.”
And Kendra has been funneling her energy into reuniting with them.
While seeing Joseph get arrested was “crazy hard,” she told her husband when he called from jail March 24, the day she was arrested was her “hardest day.”
Because, Kendra explained, “When you then take my babies from me, they were who I was just going to pour my life into.”
In another call, Kendra told him, “I just want you to know, through all of this, whatever happens, that’s who’s coming first…then we’ll just see where the rest of it leads us and try to put the pieces together.”
Joseph was released from Bay County Jail in Panama City on a $600,000 bond March 31 and was soon back with Kendra in Arkansas, his lawyer confirmed to PeopleApril 3.
Kendra’s parents Paul Caldwell and Christina Caldwell have since expressed support for Joseph’s alleged victim, as well as love for their daughter and grandchildren.
As for Joseph’s parents Jim Bob and Michelle, they were “heartbroken over the entire situation,” a spokesperson told Us Weekly last month, and “focused on loving their family and helping Kendra and her children during this difficult time.”
As Kendra told her husband in a March 26 call, their families still loved him, “even if they’re disappointed.”
Read on for everything the Duggar family has said about Joseph’s arrest:
Duggar Family/Instagram
Kris Connor/Getty Images
Instagram/Jana Duggar
Insatgram/Jason Duggar
Jinger Duggar Vuolo/Instagram
Amy Duggar King/Instagram
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