Two Mississippi residents charged in Union County child abuse case

State police moved a long-running White Deer Township child-abuse case into the courtroom after charging two Mississippi residents in a case that stretches across nearly a decade. Allen Keister, 46, and Melissa Keister, 44, were arraigned Thursday after investigators said the alleged conduct happened between 2014 and 2022 and was reported to police in February 2025.

Allen Keister faces felony counts including rape of a child and statutory sexual assault, along with related offenses. Melissa Keister faces felony endangering the welfare of children and misdemeanor corruption of minors charges. Allen Keister was jailed on $75,000 bail, while Melissa Keister was released on $10,000 unsecured bail.

The allegations are rooted in White Deer Township, a small community in northern Union County that had about 4,402 residents in the 2020 census. Union County as a whole had a population of 42,681, which helps explain why a case of this size and severity is likely to be felt far beyond the courtroom in Lewisburg. The Union County Court of Common Pleas now has the case, and further criminal proceedings will move through the county’s docket system as the case advances.

The new charges also revive scrutiny of Melissa Keister’s earlier Union County child-abuse case. In 2019, she was accused of starving and beating a young girl in her care at a White Deer Township home. Later reporting said the abuse was believed to have occurred in 2015, but police did not make contact with the child until years later, when the girl was taken to Geisinger Child Advocacy Center in Sunbury for an interview. In 2021, Melissa Keister was sentenced to three years of probation with restrictive conditions in that case.

That history gives the latest filing added local weight. For residents in White Deer Township, New Columbia, and surrounding communities, the case underscores how child-abuse investigations can stretch over years before charges are filed, and how state police, prosecutors, and child-advocacy specialists can all become part of the process. No trial date was listed with the arraignment, leaving the next steps to the county court system and any later child-protection proceedings that follow.