BRANSON (MO)
DMagazine [Dallas, TX]
April 15, 2025
By Claire Collins
Jane Doe claims her memory of the abuse when she was 9 years old was repressed until recently.
In March, we introduced you to Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, a Dallas woman working to make Texas and the rest of the country a safer place for kids. Her work is driven by the memory of her late brother, Trey. For years, Trey suffered abuse at the hands of a man named Pete Newman who worked at a Missouri summer camp called Kanakuk. As a result of the trauma Trey experienced and the restrictive NDA he was pressured to sign by Kanakuk attorneys, he ended his life in 2019 at the age of 29. Since his death, Elizabeth has become an advocate for victims of child sexual abuse. She is leading the charge to change state laws in Texas and Missouri to eliminate statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse cases and make it illegal to use NDAs in these cases. As one of the founders of the whistle-blowing website Facts About Kanakuk, Elizabeth has also become a guide of sorts for previously silenced victims.
Yesterday, a civil lawsuit against Kanakuk was filed in Missouri by a Jane Doe living in Dallas. She was a 9-year-old camper at Kanakuk in 2008, the year before Newman surrendered to law enforcement. This is the first female victim of Newman’s to come forward. Child-abuse experts who testified at Newman’s sentencing estimated that he may have had more than 2,000 victims. According to the lawsuit, Doe’s memory of the abuse had been repressed until last year. She was introduced to Elizabeth by a mutual friend, and Elizabeth has worked with Doe in getting to this point.
Doe’s petition seeks damages for negligent retention, negligent supervision, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and vicarious liability for sexual battery. It is filed against Kanakuk Ministries based in Branson, Missouri; Kanakuk’s CEO and board chair, Joe T. White; Kanakuk Heritage, Inc.; and KUKORP, LLC. Doe’s petition argues that parents had complained about Newman’s inappropriate behavior with campers as early as 1999, but the camp failed to act, instead promoting Newman higher and higher among camp ranks and ultimately to director of K-Kountry, Kanakuk’s camp for elementary-aged children, by the time Doe arrived there.
“Pete was emboldened by leadership by 2008,” Elizabeth told me. “He went from a preferential predator to a opportunistic predator. Basically, he went from having a ‘type’ to picking whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He had free rein.”
Doe’s lawsuit sheds light on what Elizabeth calls the full spectrum of Newman’s abuse. Through her work with Facts About Kanakuk, advocates know that the first report of abuse made against Kanakuk was in 1958, the year the White family opened Kanakomo, the then all-girls branch of the camp. That victim did not come forward with her outcry of abuse until 2021, when the first articles about Kanakuk were being published. She was in her 70s.
“The only reason Kanakuk hasn’t been sued out of existence is because of the statute of limitations in Missouri,” Elizabeth says.
In that state, a victim has until her 31st birthday to file against an individual perpetrator but only her 26th birthday to file against a responsible organization or business. Doe has already turned 26, but there is a provision in the law for victims with repressed memories.
In a statement released by her lawyers, Doe said: “Immediately upon arrival at camp, I felt homesick, vulnerable and afraid. Pete Newman took advantage of that, and I endured unspeakable things. Now that I’ve found my voice, I am speaking out for my 9-year-old self and others who have been harmed by the negligence of Kanakuk.”
Editor’s note: an earlier version of this story said that Doe was 25. That error was corrected.