Pastor Arrested on Child Rape Charges: After 'Decades, It's a Miracle'

A onetime star of a Pentecostal children's ministry is now facing the kind of charges some former congregants say they've been waiting 40 years to see. Joe Campbell, 68, was arrested Wednesday in Missouri and charged in Oklahoma with first-degree rape and lewd or indecent acts with a child under 16, the state attorney general's office said, per KY3. The US Marshals Service picked him up in Elkland and booked him into the Greene County jail in Springfield, where he's awaiting his move to Oklahoma.

The rape charge appears linked to allegations from Kerri Jackson, now 53, who says Campbell molested her regularly for several years in Tulsa, starting when she was about 9. Oklahoma prosecutors revived the case using an old state law that pauses the statute of limitations when a suspect leaves the state—a strategy they recently used to prosecute former megachurch pastor Robert Morris. Previous efforts to pursue Campbell in Oklahoma and Missouri had fizzled after authorities said too much time had passed. "After all these decades, it's a miracle," Jackson told NBC News after learning of the arrest.

Campbell's arrest follows an NBC News investigation that detailed accusations from more than a dozen people who said he abused or behaved inappropriately with children in the 1970s and '80s while serving as an Assemblies of God minister. Church officials reportedly learned of allegations in the late '80s, but they allowed him to continue in ministry for another year or so before he was finally expelled. Campbell then launched an independent church and youth camp in the Missouri Ozarks and eventually landed a national teaching slot on the PTL Television Network.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond calls the alleged conduct "horrific," noting he expects more victims may emerge. Former accusers, including Jackson and another woman, Phaedra Creed, say the arrest feels like long-delayed validation. "I was speaking the truth then, and I'm speaking the truth now," Creed says. "I am so happy justice will finally be served." If convicted, Campbell could spend the rest of his life in prison.