Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Disturbing Trend of Female Teachers Accused of Sex with Students

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

A long line of women working in schools have been accused in the last six months of having sexual relationships with the students they’re supposed to be teaching and nurturing. Some of the victims are as young as 12, according to police reports. The cases span several states and include younger and middle-age educators. Law&Crime’s Angenette Levy and “Takedown with Chris Hansen” host Chris Hansen discuss the disturbing trend and what’s driving these women in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime. Host:  Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Chris Hansen  https://twitter.com/chrishansen?lang=enCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Women hired to nurture and teach children, later accused of taking advantage of their positions and sexually assaulting the kids. What's driving them to molest kids that they should be protecting? Thanks for joining me for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Female teachers accused of using their jobs to target their students who are just kids for sex. It's happening a lot these days,

and some of these cases involve students as young as 12. In Texas, Jaden Charles, a pregnant mother of four, was arrested in the past week, accused of having sex with multiple students. Police telling local TV stations they have video of Charles at a hotel with a student. Another Texas case, Margaret Claire Burris was charged last month with having an improper relationship with a student after police said they found inappropriate text messages on her phone. In Florida, Lauren King, a paraprofessional,

was also charged recently with having sex with a 12-year-old student. I can remember back in the 90s when Mary Kay Letourneau was arrested and charged with raping her 12-year-old student, Villy Falau. Letourneau served time in prison and even gave birth to two children fathered by Falau. They even later married. The case was shocking. People couldn't believe it. Now it seems like we're hearing about a female teacher being arrested every other week somewhere around the country for having sex with a student. With me to discuss what seems to be an epidemic of female teachers being arrested for sex crimes with students is Chris Hansen. He's an expert in this.

He's the host of Takedown with Chris Hansen. He's also the co-founder of the True Blue Crime Network. Chris, I just can't get over the number of female teachers who've been arrested recently. We've covered at least 10 or 12 of them just in the last couple of months across the country. So what is going on as far as you can tell? Are we just not screening these people properly or are we hiring people who are too young and too immature to handle these positions? I would almost buy into the age argument

and the maturity argument, Anjanette, except for the fact that we've seen cases of offenders involving crimes like this who are in their 70s on the most extreme side. This has happened so much in the last 18 months that we at True Blue have actually commissioned a documentary looking at the root cause of this, trying to find out. And I don't pretend to have the answer to that question. We are delving into it. it but i can tell you based upon all the hundreds of predator investigations that that we've done and continue to do at true blue you see trends

and what causes the trend the offense typically has its roots in fantasy many times in porn. And so if you're seeing teacher-student fetish porn on one of the social media hubs or platforms providing this sort of material, you ultimately will see this play out in real life. And I think that may have some effect on what we're seeing now. There's some fantasy brewing out there in a certain section of our society that's being played out. And that's part of what I think we're seeing here now. That's an interesting take from you, because I think that is a legitimate concern, the pornography aspect of this. It creates this fantasy. But also, I mean, this is illegal.

I mean, this is not. It is illegal. And the other thing that psychiatrists will tell you, Ingenet, is that for some of these people, they're acting out an experience that either reflects a very exciting point in their life, or they're trying to catch up with something they missed out on. Predators who talk to me after they're arrested, and I don't know whether they're telling me the truth or not, but they will often tell me that they're preying on a girl who's 12, 13, 14, 15, because they felt they missed out when they were 12, 13, 14, 15, and other kids were having sex and they weren't. I don't know if I buy that, but that's what they say. And the other thing psychiatrists and therapists will tell you is that in the case of a female teacher who's exploiting a young male

student, it will represent a happy, pleasurable, pleasant time in their lives. And they want to recreate that experience at the cost of exploiting a child. And so I think it all plays together. You know, there's never a single point failure or single point cause in these situations. It's a combination of things that all come to a head. But absolutely, and above being anecdotal, I can tell you that we're seeing more of these cases than ever before. And I've been in this business for 42 years as a reporter and 20 years investigating child predators. Literally 20 years ago this month, we did the very first investigation. And, you know, I've come to learn a lot about these crimes. And so I think there's very definitely a link with porn and fetish porn involving teacher-student scenarios.

That is very interesting. And part of me, it almost sounds like there's an arrested development kind of thing going on here as well. Well, I think that's part of it too. Yeah. But you shouldn't be in these positions then. I mean, like, well, exactly. And so the question is, you know, are we doing enough to screen people? But if you look at the case in the Midwest that we explored on, on a true blue a couple months ago, you had a, literally a woman in her seventies at a private Christian school who was,

you know, sexually involved with, with at least one and maybe more students. Who suspects somebody of that? You know, it doesn't meet the criminal math of what we normally see. So you know, obviously, we need screening. Obviously, school administrators need to be vigilant about who they hire and how quickly they hire the background checks of those they hire. But, you know, a lot of these cases are slipping through and we're seeing more than ever before. They do seem to be slipping through. And I wonder, are we becoming more aware of it? And I think back

to when I was in high school, of course. And when I was in high school, I mean, the teachers, we had a couple of younger teachers, right? But all the teachers just seem like older. They seem like older than your parents or at least your parents age at least. And it didn't ever seem like somebody like, I mean, maybe I was just fortunate that we didn't have that going on in the places where I went to school. But it just didn't seem like we heard about it as much. I mean, is it because they're getting caught more these days as well? Because I think that's part of it. I mean, yeah, I think it's cell phones. I think it's social media that fuels this from all standpoints, the internet, obviously. But I also think there's more awareness. So there's more opportunity for somebody to report it. There's more. I hope that all these stories we do on

predators embolden survivors and victims to come forward and report this. So I think there's more of that. I think, you know, parents do review their children's social media. And a lot of these cases are uncovered because a parent sees something on a cell phone or a tablet and you can also see odd behavior you know if the teacher is picking up your student you know from the house and you know they're not going on a field trip or at least not the kind of field trip you want them to go on it raises suspicions but all predators predator teachers included you know prey on those who are vulnerable. So they will try to find kids who fit the scenario of somebody who may not tell or who may be vulnerable for a number of different reasons. And that's what predators do.

So that's why some of these cases go on for months, sometimes many months before they're reported and uncovered and investigated. But at least now, because of all the awareness and all the investigations that we've done and so many different law enforcement agencies across the country have done, the justice system takes this seriously. It's not just swept under the rug. These cases are prosecuted. District attorneys across the country take it very seriously. Law enforcement takes it very seriously. And, you know, some of these people are going to prison and they're facing, you know, very, very strict enforcement here. What do schools need to do to screen better for this? I mean, do you have any idea? I mean, do we need a more stringent interview process? Do we need like a psychological evaluation

of these teachers before they're hired and these paraprofessionals? Well, I think each state has a responsibility and the federal government has a responsibility to set a baseline of a background check. So obviously there's a criminal background check. There should be some sort of interview that is conducted by a school administrator who has practiced in psychology and perhaps psychiatry to say, okay, does this person seem fit? There's no 100% guarantee on any of this. You know that. You've been in this business too long to know that you can't have a 100% dome of safety. Yeah, people slip through and that's unfortunate, but that's part of, you know, reality, but we can do the

best we can to prevent that from happening. And it doesn't appear in some of these cases that's been done. You know, I, I, sadly you can't always assume that everybody's a good person, you know? Um, I think sometimes you have to assume that everybody has you know an element of badness to them or evil to them and that's unfortunate but when it comes to teachers and the safety of our students and our children i think we need to take that extra step and talk to your kids every day i mean i well i think look this is this is this is this is right this is my mantra because all this is going on because the police can't be everywhere the feds can't be everywhere school administrators can't be everywhere your best defense on all of this

is the relationship that you have with your children and especially in the early stages of children having access to the Internet, the first conversation is there are adults on the Internet who like to trick children. They will pretend to be children in order to trick you. If you don't know them in real life, you don't know them as friends on the Internet. That's how it starts. And as kids mature and they have greater access to the Internet, you need to ratchet up that conversation but you also need to you know talk about adults in their lives and you know we want to look up to our

teachers and our principals and our coaches but you know if something happens you know come to me it's the same with sextortion you know so many of these kids are afraid to tell their parents they made a mistake and sent a you know a sexually explicit picture thinking it was a girl and it was actually an extortionist from half a world away. And they're committing suicide over this as opposed to saying, you know, I messed up. And no parent would not understand that. And so they're, especially when it comes to boys, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, you know, their brains aren't fully formed yet.

You know, they don't get all that's happening to them. And so, you know, we, we want to protect our girls, you know, but we have to protect our young men too. And they have to know that they can come to you if there's a problem. And that is still, you know, the best defense of your family, of your children is to have that conversation. And it's not easy to have always, but you need to have it. Yeah. Every, every night I asked my son, how was school? What happened at school? You know, just, I don't force them, but I, I do. And we have these conversations ever so often about how not everybody is a good person. So I just think back to these things. You know, shluff it off on me and my investigations.

I mean, so you got to watch this. I haven't introduced my son yet to Chris Hansen. Well, and maybe it's not age appropriate yet. But I mean, there's always a reason to raise alarm without you being overprotective or seeming overprotective. You can always blame it on somebody else that I saw this and I just want to make sure. I know it sounds silly and extreme, but I want to make sure this, you know, isn't happening at your school. And you just know that you can tell me if something weird or like this happens. You know, again, blame it on Hanson. That's fine. I'm comfortable with that. We will blame it on Hanson. Chris Hanson, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Thank you, Anjanette. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight

at 6 Eastern time on Law & Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.