Miracle Meadows Founder Scheduled for Tuesday Morning Plea Hearing

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — The founder and director of the since-closed Miracle Meadows School in Harrison County is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning for a plea hearing.

Susan Susan Gayle Clark, 69, of Pennsboro, was arrested on August 22, 2014 and charged with two felony counts of child neglect resulting in injury, two misdemeanor counts of failure to report and one misdemeanor count of obstruction of a law enforcement officer.

The state’s case is based on Clark’s failure to report numerous instances of child abuse at the Seventh-day Adventist affiliated Christian boarding school in Salem.

Allegations include the improper use of handcuffs and isolation rooms, along with the failure to report sexual abuse between students.

The school was shut down on August 14, 2014, after the arrest of Timothy Aaron Arrington, a progress coach at the school who was charged with three felony counts of child abuse creating risk of serious injury and one count of child abuse resulting in injury.

Representatives from the state removed around 19 students between the ages of 10 and 17, but eight of those children would later be found at Clark’s home in Ritchie County before she was arrested.

The cases against Clark and Arrington have been delayed multiple times and have not been presented to a grand jury. They both remain free on bond.

Clark is scheduled to appear at 8:15 a.m. Tuesday before Judge Thomas Bedell.

Reports indicate the state will file an information, a document that allows the prosecutor to bypass the grand jury after receiving consent from the defendant.