'It Was Terrifying': Jill Duggar's Chilling Confession About 'Strangers Showing Up Unannounced to Make Sure Locks Were on Doors' Resurfaces After Brother Joseph's Child Molestation Arrest
A chilling passage from Jill Duggar's 2023 memoir has resurfaced.
April 3 2026, Published 4:05 p.m. ET
A recollection Jill Duggar shared in 2023 about how she and her sisters had locks on their bedroom doors while growing up has resurfaced after her brother, Joseph Duggar, was arrested for child molestation, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The lines came in a passage from Jill's memoir, Counting the Cost, where she discussed the investigation into her brother Josh Duggar's confessions that he molested her and several of her sisters when he was a teenager.
'Strangers Would Come to Our House at Random Times'
Jill Duggar Dillard released her memoir in 2023.
A fan posted the passage to Reddit, under the thread title, "Reading Jill's book and something stood out to me about locks on doors..."
The section read: "Pops received a call notifying him of the investigation, and myself, most of my sisters, and my parents all had to be interviewed. We attended a closed-court session."
Jill revealed that total "strangers" would turn up at the family's Tontitown, Arkansas, compound to make sure the female Duggar children were safe.
"People – strangers – would come to our house at random times to make sure there were locks on the doors and that everybody was sleeping where they were supposed to be sleeping. It was terrifying," she noted.
Duggar Parents Torched for Not Better Monitoring Josh's Behavior
Many Reddit users were critical of the Duggar parents locking their kids in their bedrooms.
The passage sparked debate among users.
One claimed about parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, "Yes. They locked the girls' and boys' bedrooms. Locked them in. Their way of making sure the boys don’t go molesting their sisters at night."
A second added, "Imagine when you'd rather choose to design your home this way than to actually parent your children and give real consequences to bad behavior," while a third person noted, "Oh, it's so much effort to address everything but the actual problem."
Fans took apart Jill Duggar's 'strangers' at the family 'house' to mean CPS workers.
However, others were intrigued by Jill's reference to "total strangers" showing up at the home.
A fourth Redditor asked, "Does CPS come in the middle of the night? This sounds more like lies Michelle or JimBob told them to scare them into submission."
"If CPS feels like there is a risk to a child in a home, they don’t say, 'Oh, okay, just lock them away from it.' That’s… not how any sane person handles it. CPS would be required to actually deal with the situation causing the danger instead of restraining children in a room while the danger continues in the home," a fifth user pointed out.
Josh Duggar 'Was Just Curious About Girls' When He Molested His Sisters
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Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar publicly addressed Josh's molestation confession in 2015.
Josh allegedly told his parents about allegedly molesting his sisters in the early aughts. He received a stern talking-to from a law enforcement family friend and was given faith-based treatment. A police investigation was launched in 2006, although no charges were ever brought.
Jim Bob and Michelle were forced to address the secret they had hidden for well over a decade after the molestation allegations became public knowledge in May 2015, after the police report was leaked.
"He said he was just curious about girls, and he had gone in and just basically touched them over their clothes while they were sleeping; they didn't even know he had done it," Jim Bob told then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
Jill and her sister Jessa Duggar Seeward self-identified as two of Josh's victims.
Jessa noted at the time, “The system that was set up to protect kids, both those who make stupid mistakes or have problems like this in their life and the ones that are affected by those choices – it's greatly failed."
Josh is currently serving a 12-year federal prison sentence in Texas after being convicted of child pornography charges in 2022.
Joseph was arrested on March 18, after allegedly confessing to molesting a nine-year-old girl during a family vacation in 2020. He entered a not guilty plea in a Florida courtroom and requested a jury trial before making bail and heading home to Arkansas.
