Print edition: 
LEXINGTON, Mo. —Hours after a father and his four middle-age sons shuffled into court Thursday, a sixth man was arrested in connection with an expanding child-rape-and-sodomy investigation.
A 55-year-old Kansas City man, identified as an associate of Burrell E. Mohler's extended family, was arrested on suspicion of rape of a child less than 14 years old. He was being held in the Lafayette County Jail.
More alleged victims also have been identified since the case went public, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol.
The five Mohlers, shackled in their jail clothes and some near tears, were escorted to a Lafayette County courtroom Thursday morning to hear the charges read against them — 14 charges ranging from forcible sodomy and rape to use of a child in a sexual performance.
Burrell Edward Mohler Sr., 77, of Independence, is alleged to have presided over the abuses that occurred from 1988 to 1995. His four sons, Burrell Edward Mohler Jr., 53, also of Independence; Jared Leroy Mohler, 48, of Columbia; Roland Neil Mohler, 47, of Bates City; and David A. Mohler, 52, of Iowa, also were charged.
Meanwhile, the digging in a rural corner of Lafayette County continued as authorities looked for evidence of sex crimes against the children, bottled memories they supposedly had buried and possibly bodies.
Thursday afternoon, crews moved their backhoe to the front of a garage on the property from a wooded area about 200 yards from the house. The property, south of Bates City, is now owned by a man with no connection to the case.
Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh had hinted strongly that more charges could be filed and possibly not just for sexual crimes. "Indications are that an individual or individuals were killed," the sheriff said, declining to comment further other than to say there could be "numerous locations."
"The case has taken 100 turns since our last news conference," said Alumbaugh, again without offering elaboration.
The information on the latest arrest gave no time frame for the allegation, but the alleged victim was a little older that those vaguely described in the earlier charges as under 12. The man arrested is not being named in this story because he had not been charged Thursday.
Associate Circuit Judge John Frerking set their cash bonds, ranging from $30,000 to $75,000.
The men were arrested Tuesday in coordinated raids, based on allegations of a young woman, who said her relatives had molested and had sex with her and other children, sometimes as part of "marriage" rituals, beginning two decades ago. Now 26, she said the abuse had begun when she was 5 and had ended only after she was forced to have an abortion at age 11.
Court documents indicated her once-suppressed memories were supported by other members of the family, some of whom apparently also were victims.
