Samuel Gardner (1932 – 1968) was an LDS bishop in the Oklahoma City First Ward in the early 1960s; accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy in the bishop's office at a Mormon chapel in about 1961; died in 1968.

Gardner was an LDS bishop in Oklahoma in the 1950s or 1960s. After his death, he was accused of sexual abuse by a man who reported to the Mormon Alliance that the abuse had taken place in the bishop’s office in an LDS chapel, when he was about 15-16 years old. He also said that Gardner sexually abused him at his (the victim’s) home.

Gardner’s older sister was married to James Cullimore, who later became an LDS mission president, general authority and assistant to the apostles.

At least three other boys said Gardner sexually fondled them, according to a case report by the Mormon Alliance.

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Sources

  1. Samuel H. Gardner - obituary, Spanish Fork Press, August 15, 1968.
  2. Case Reports of the Mormon Alliance, Vol. 1 (1995), Lavina Fielding Anderson, Janice Merrill Allred, January 1, 1995.
  3. UTLM #91 - November 1996, , September 9, 2025.
  4. Blame the Victim: Hushing Mormon Sexual Abuse, Marion Smith, April 10, 1996.

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