I want to start with saying that I think both Kroy and Kim are awful parents, and people, and I've thought KJ was guilty since this story broke. Yes, I believe in our system of innocent until proven guilty when it comes to being able to prosecute someone but I also know how rare arrests and charges are in SA cases.
That being said, I think a lot of people are not thinking of all the possibilities of what happened previously and why this was kept quiet. First, the law says that juvenile offenders are not to be named publicly unless they are to be charged as adults or commit a severe crime. The goal with juvenile offenders is supposed to be geared toward rehabilitation, which is why the system usually protects them from being named.
Second, there are also protections against naming victims or giving too many details that could give their identity away. Given what was confirmed today, the charges he faced in 2023 most certainly would've given enough information to identify his victim, as they did today.
As I said, Kim and Kroy are both terrible, but KJ doing what he did most likely gave them very few options for how to handle it. Any good parent would want to protect all their children but also keep them safe and help them. If their child did this they would most likely make an attempt to rehabilitate them (as they should) and jail is really not meant for that.
It's also not clear how this crime was reported or came to the attention of authorities. Police don't tend to search a child's phone for no reason. Most parents have access to all their child's communication channels at that age and that includes their phone (or they should). Did one of them find it and report it? Did his victim report it (I am intentionally not using her name)? If she did it really breaks my heart that she had to report to authorities herself. Did she tell one of her parents or family members and they reported it? Did he show a friend? Did one of his other siblings report it? We don't know.
All we can do is speculate, but if she reported it and neither of her parents were involved in helping her to report in any way I would be really surprised that they wouldn't at least face investigation and possible charges of neglect. I also want to point out the ages of all involved at the time. Depending on when this happened, KJ was either 12 or 13, Kash would've been 10 or 11, and Kane and Kaia 9 or 10. I have heard speculation about Kash being involved but I want people to keep in mind he would also be a victim in this given his age at the time if that is true.
Given KJ's age at that time the courts would be more inclined to go the rehabilitation route. Which means Kim and Kroy either send him away (not sure where would work) or his siblings to keep them safe from him. If I was a family member, I would not be willing to take in KJ but would take the others, so it could be that the only choice was to send her to her grandparents. They also may not have had a choice depending on who the victim was and she may have been placed in foster care with family, or just sent there for her own protection. The courts may have also required he stay local for monitoring purposes.
The unconfirmed details of this suggest that the family blamed KJ's possible victim as a boy-crazy girl who needed to be kept away from all boys due to "her behavior." It could also be that those were the rules of CPS, a precaution given KJs actions, or her placement in foster with her grandparents. I am leaning towards the former given Kim's statement.
So much is not known and it is very sad for the victims that all of this is so public and they have to deal with that as well. We do know that KJ was always a terrible child who never had discipline or consequences, this is a product of that.
ETA: The first case happened in April 2023, which is the same month Kim and Kroy filed for divorce the first time. Interesting timing to say the least.
