Ex-wife of convicted child molester is charged now with being an accessory to the sex abuse

Gena Studdard, 52, of Wasola, was arrested last week in Christian County connection with eight felony charges filed against her relating to the sexual abuse of multiple children in 2007-2017.

According to the probable cause statement filed in the case prepared by Ozark County Sheriff Cass Martin, officers believe Gena acted in concert and had knowledge that her husband at the time, Jerry Studdard, was sexually assaulting her children while living in their Wasola home. Gena and Jerry Studdard divorced Nov. 6, 2020, three years after he was first charged in the case. 

Jerry was sentenced to a collective 15 years in prison during a sentencing hearing held Dec. 22, 2021.

Studdard was found guilty during an Oct. 20, 2021, jury trial of two counts of statutory sodomy of a child in the first degree for subjecting a female victim to deviate sexual intercourse by touching her genitalia in 2007 when she was 11, and again in 2008 when she was 12.

The case came to light in October 2017 when an officer was contacted by a 22-year-old woman who said she’d like to report that she had been sexually assaulted by Studdard. She is one of 12 children who were raised in Studdard’s home, the report says. 

“After receiving the report from [the first victim], other children from the household or whom had previously been children in the household, also reported sexual abuse,” the report says. 

The woman said that her mother, Gena, married Jerry in 2005, and the abuse began two years later. She described in detail various sexual acts that he performed on her and that he forced her to perform on him. 

The victim said that the abuse became worse as she matured and continued until 2017. 

She said that she spoke with a younger sister in 2017 and told the sister about the sexual abuse. The younger sister confided that Jerry Studdard had also sexually abused her, the report says. 

An officer spoke with a sister younger than those two, who also recounted sexual abuse by Jerry Studdard, which began when she was under the age of 11, she said. 

Multiple other siblings said they witnessed the sexual abuse of the girls over the years. 

The youngest victim told officers that “her mother was aware of the abuse but would not interfere with it stating [the girl] did not understand men, and [the girl] did not have a dad so didn’t know how dad’s were to interact with daughters,” the report says.

“[A brother] stated he confronted his mother regarding the abuse, and she stated it would end, and she had corrected the problem with Studdard,” the report says. 

On Feb. 23, last Tuesday, one of the siblings testified under oath that Gena Studdard “was not only aware of the instances of sexual and physical abuse but was involved in that she would punish the children for trying to speak out and threaten physical harm upon anyone who tried to get outside help.”

Studdard is now charged with two counts of being an accessory to statutory sodomy in the first-degree (deviate sexual intercourse with a person younger than 12), three counts of being an accessory to child molestation, three counts of being an accessory to statutory sodomy in the second-degree. 

If convicted of the class A felony of accessory of first-degree child molestation, she will be required to serve between 10 and 30 years in prison. 

The arrest was made in a joint effort between the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department and the Christian County Sheriff’s Office where former Ozark County Cpl. Curtis Dobbs is now employed.  Dobbs was involved in the original investigation involving the Jerry Studdard case.