Teen charged in Hallmark Youthcare sexual assault case, second probe open

A juvenile has been charged in the sexual assault of another underage resident at Hallmark Youthcare in Goochland County, and Virginia State Police said a second sexual assault investigation from May 2025 remains open. The arrest, announced April 30, 2026, puts renewed attention on supervision inside the locked psychiatric residential center at 12800 West Creek Parkway.

The case carries unusual weight in Goochland because Hallmark is not a typical treatment provider. The campus serves adolescents with emotional and behavioral mental-health needs, and the facility says its residential program has operated in Goochland County since 1992 after expanding from its original start in 1976. Hallmark says the West Creek site offers residential psychiatric services, outpatient therapy and community-based services, along with a substance-use specialty track and a program for sexually acting-out youth.

The arrest also lands after Hallmark had already faced scrutiny over how it was being monitored. A September 2025 report said the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services conducted both an unannounced inspection and a scheduled inspection that year and found zero violations. The same report said the state had recently renewed Hallmark Youthcare’s license to operate. For parents and guardians whose children are placed in residential care, that contrast is stark: a campus cleared by inspectors in 2025 is now tied to an active criminal investigation involving juveniles.

Concerns about daily oversight at the facility surfaced again in a separate family complaint. One child entered Hallmark on March 25, 2024 and stayed until May 12, 2024, and the family member who later raised concerns described problems with phone communication in a complaint to the state behavioral health department. Those complaints added to questions about whether residents could reliably reach home and whether staff responded fast enough when problems arose.

Public human-rights committee records show scrutiny at Hallmark long predates the current case. In 2007, the facility was cited for failing to report an incident to Human Rights within 24 hours; the same records noted two suicide attempts or gestures and 29 informal complaints that were received and resolved during one reporting period. By 2009, records showed five informal complaints, all resolved, and no formal complaints.

With one investigation now leading to charges and another still open, Hallmark Youthcare is again at the center of questions that reach beyond one campus. For Goochland County, the case is about more than an arrest. It is about whether a locked residential treatment setting for vulnerable teenagers is being watched closely enough to keep residents safe and protect public trust.