Melissa Gilbert’s husband missing as feds join search in sex abuse case
The U.S. Marshals Service were reportedly helping police in Albuquerque, New Mexico search for veteran TV actor Timothy Busfield, three days after a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges that he engaged in unlawful sexual conduct with two underaged brothers who had appeared in a TV series he was directing.
As of Monday evening, the whereabouts of Busfield, the 68-year-old husband of “Little House on the Prairie” star Melissa Gilbert, were unknown, Albuquerque police told TMZ and People. On Friday, police revealed that they had obtained a warrant for Busfield, alleging that the “West Wing” actor groomed and molested 11-year-old twins while he directed them in the Fox TV series, “The Cleaning Lady.” One of the child actors alleged that the abuse by Busfield began when he was 7, People reported.
When asked by People if Busfield had been located, detained or arrested on Monday, an Albuquerque police spokesperson responded, “Not that I am aware.”
According to the arrest warrant, the allegations against Busfield stem from a doctor at the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH) alerting officers about a case of reported sexual abuse in 2024, People reported. The boys’ parents said they were advised by an attorney to take the children to UNMH, where they said professionals suggested the boys “were groomed.”
At the time, it was determined that the case did not meet authorities’ “acceptance criteria,” People reported. A year later, in October 2025, the victims’ mother filed a police report and told Child Protective Services (CPS) that “her children both disclosed that there was sexual abuse by Busfield from around November 2022 to Spring 2024.” People reported.
Gilbert, Busfield’s wife of 12 years, has been drawn into his controversy and taken down her Instagram. The affidavit for the arrest warrant revealed that the beloved former child star and one-time president of the Screen Actors Guild was listening in on Busfield’s Nov. 3 phone interview with an Albuquerque police detective, People and the Daily Mail reported. During the interview, Gilbert said that she and her Emmy-winning husband socialized with the boys and their family outside of work and that she bought the boys’ Christmas presents. The detective interpreted such moves as Gilbert helping her husband to “foster closeness” with the his alleged victims.
During the phone interview with the detective, Busfield denied the allegations, People reported. He said the parents were upset that their sons had been replaced with a younger actor, according to the warrant. But shortly after, the actor got a call from Warner Bros., informing him they were investigating a complaint.
Another reason that Gilbert has been drawn into her husband’s controversy is that she, as SAG president from 2001 to 2005, advocated for protections for child actors, the Los Angeles Times reported. Moreover, Gilbert publicly spoke out against the sexual exploitation of minors on Nov. 15, nearly two weeks after she listened in on the Nov. 3 phone interview and heard that her husband was under criminal investigation. On Nov. 15, Gilbert went on Instagram to say she had come to realize that it was inappropriate for her, as a 15-year-old on “Little House on the Prairie,” to be expected to do a love scene with an older male actor.
Gilbert’s post was part of the viral #iwasfifteen hashtag, launched against conservative media personality Megyn Kelly. On her Sirius XM show in November, Kelly was accused of seeming to downplay the victimization of female teenagers by questioning whether notorious accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein could qualify as a pedophile, according to People.
Kelly suggested that the word didn’t necessarily apply to Epstein because he supposedly didn’t prey on young children but on adolescent girls. Kelly called 15-year-old girls “the barely legal type.” The #iwasfifteen trend rose in response. It involved women, like Gilbert, sharing photos of themselves when they were 15 years old. Gillbert shared a photo of herself with her older male co-star in a scene from “Little House on the Prairie.”
Following news that Gilbert’s husband was facing charges, Kelly blasted her for her Nov. 15 post. She accused Gilbert of “virtue signaling,” saying she must have known that the abuse claims against her husband would soon become public. According to Kelly, “Melissa saw an opportunity to play the ‘avenger’ of victims and she took it, dishonestly attacking and lecturing your reporter on abuse claims in a cynical effort to get some Chips in the Good Person bank.”
Busfield also was previously embroiled in allegations that he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl on the set of the 1993 film, “Little Big League,” which he directed, as People and other outlets reported, In response to the allegations, Busfield filed a defamation lawsuit against the Minneapolis law firm representing his female accuser, who had been an extra on the film.
In 1996, a federal judge rejected Busfield’s defamation claims and ordered the actor to pay the law firm $150,000, People reported. Busfield also reportedly settled the underlying lawsuit involving the girl for an undisclosed amount.
Up until Friday, Gilbert and Busfield seemed to be blissfully happy in their marriage. They came to it with a history of two prior marriages and two divorces each, according to People. They also had children from those marriages. When they met at a bar in 2012, Gilbert said it felt like “getting hit with a thunderbolt,” as she told People in September 2024. She said she immediately knew she wanted to marry him. Busfield concurred, saying, “I knew she was the one. It felt so real.”
After marrying in 2013, Busfield had been a regular presence on Gilbert’s Instagram, as she has shared photos of their happy moments together — adopting a rescue dog together, her honoring him on father’s day. They have been living in New York City and own a home in the Catskills. On Nov. 1, two days before Busfield’s police interview, Gilbert shared a photo of the two of them, posing in front of an autumn landscape and writing, “This is how we do a date day: Driving through stunning beauty to go get our favorite vegan food … and then to see @blackphonemovie followed by grocery shopping. We are a wild pair.”