With certain family members having opted out of appearing, Amazon Studios’ Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets put the controversy-courting Duggar family right back in the national spotlight, while also shining a light on the Institute of Basic Life Principles. The buzzy docuseries also obviously features some people from outside the Duggar bloodline, such as longtime friends and fellow Quiverfull believers Jim and Bobye Holt, whose 11 children together include Josh Duggar’s former girlfriend Kaeleigh. However, it looks like the Holt clan started going through their own inner-family turmoil in the months before the new streaming show debuted.
According to court documents that date back to April 21, Bobye Holt successfully filed an order of protection from husband Jim, with the judge giving it the go-ahead, according to ArkTimes. That may or may not have been a temporary order, though, as the family matriarch followed up on May 8 and was granted another longer-lasting protection order.
She’s not the only one, either. One of their sons, Samuel Holt, filed some form of complaint against Jim on April 20, which appeared to be connected with his mother’s complaint the following day. And then on the same day her extended protection order was approved in court, Samuel was also granted a similar order against his father.
While the court-filed complaints noted above could be confirmed publicly, the Springdale Police Department were unable to provide further details behind either the mother or son’s requests. The local PD did confirm that they responded to a call regarding the Holts on April 15 of this year, but that was as far as the information went. Here’s the response SPD’s Bailey Johnson sent this month when a request was made for more info.
To whom it may concern: The mission of the Springdale Police Department is to improve the quality of life by building relationships to solve problems and safeguard our community. As a part of building relationships, the Springdale Police Department will provide lawfully requested information to members of our community to provide a transparent look at the actions, interactions, and practices of the Springdale Police Department and its members. Unfortunately the police department is unable to provide the information you requested because the request is an active investigation. A search for case 23-23600 was conducted and this request is an active investigation per the City Attorney's Office.
The case remaining open means we likely won’t hear many details about the cause for the protection orders, at least not while they’re active. It’s reported that such orders can last up to ten years, though it’s obviously unclear just how serious things are at the moment.
Jim Holt is certainly no stranger to opposition outside the family home, having served his home state of Arkansas in the U.S. Government from 2001-2006 in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate. A staunch conservative, Holt is against abortions, is anti-healthcare on a national level, and at one point aimed to restrict evolution being taught in the state’s public schools, though his bill failed to move forward at the time.
The Holts and the Duggars’ friendship goes back years, with Kaeleigh Holt having dated the currently incarcerated Josh Duggar back when they were both 14 years old. Her big TV appearance from that era came when she popped up on the 2006 precursor special 16 Children and Moving In, which eventually morphed into 19 Kids and Counting.
Bobye Holt, who testified against Josh Duggar during his child pornography trial, claimed that her daughter was being groomed to eventually marry him. However, those plans were brought to a halt after it was discovered that a teenaged Josh molested five younger females, which included four of his sisters. (In hindsight, Jill Duggar Dillard has shared regrets about defending her brother in that infamous Megyn Kelly interview.) Holt claimed to have learned about the molestation situation back in 2003, twelve years before things went public, after Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar shared some of the details. But she also claimed that Josh himself visited the family two years later with his own confession, and that his details painted a more disturbing picture than what his parents claimed.
It’s unclear if the Holt family’s current situation is directly related at all to the Duggar family or the Shiny Happy People docuseries, in which Jim Holt plays a sizable role. All four episodes can be streamed with an Amazon Prime subscription.
