Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Teacher Has Sex With Student While Husband Out Of Town: 'We Almost Got Caught'

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

A judge in Spokane County, Washington sentenced former high school student McKenna Kindred, 24, to two years probation for having sex with a student at her home while her husband was out of town in 2022. Kindred will also have to register as a sex offender but only for a limited period of time. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with former sex crimes prosecutor Matt Murphy about how the relationship was uncovered in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lccrimefix and access information about almost anyone!Host:  Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Matt Murphy https://www.instagram.com/mattmurphylaw/CRIME 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. A high school teacher from Washington State learns her punishment for having sex with a student. Is it just a slap on the wrist? Thanks for joining me for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. A judge in Spokane County, Washington Washington sentenced McKenna Kindred to two years probation for having sex with one of her students. No jail time. Kindred also has to register as a sex offender, but not for life. She'll have to register for just 10 years. The 17-year-old boy

and Kindred began messaging each other on Instagram, and some students at Central Valley High School discovered the messages and became suspicious back in December of 2022. Then Kindred reported she was being harassed by allegations that she was having an inappropriate relationship with a student. So school officials called the cops and Kindred ended up being charged. Kindred was 24 when she had sex with that student at her home when her husband was out of town on a hunting trip. When she was sentenced, she apologized for the harm that she had done. Matt Murphy is a former prosecutor who prosecuted

sex crimes for years. Matt, your first thoughts on this sentence for McKenna Kindred. She is not going to serve a day in jail. Well, each one of these cases has to be determined on its own merits and its own equities. So this is a young woman who cheated on her husband, had this abusive sexual relationship with this teenage boy. Apparently it began when he was 16, but may not have been actually consummated until he was 17. And, you know, the judges have wide latitude and a lot of discretion in the sentences they choose. Justice comes in all different shapes and sizes. So in this woman's case, you know, she's certainly, she's got to be a registered sex offender for 10 years. I'm sure her marriage won't survive it. Her career won't survive it. So there are

consequences outside of a custodial sentence. That said, you know, one of the things that you see a lot on cases like this, and this is a thing, you know, these young teachers that have sexual relationships with their students, you know, there's kind of the locker room, knock, knock, knock, wherever she went, I was a student thing. Right. And I've prosecuted these cases. And the thing that everybody forgets is that when you have an adult woman like this, in addition to the potential impact

on the boys and their development, and it looks like this young man actually had to leave the school, there's also the risk of pregnancy. And that happens sometimes in these cases. We saw that with Mary Kay Letourneau. And that is a consequence as devastating to a male victim of something like this as anything that could befall virtually any other victim of violent crime or crime. I mean, if you think about if your liquor store gets robbed, you recover from that. If you're mugged in a hallway or an alley, you can recover from that. If as a sexual assault victim, as a teenage boy, you impregnate somebody who insists on

taking that pregnancy to term and has that child, in I think every single state, the law basically says that boy, that sexual assault victim is now financially responsible for that child. So this can be a devastating thing impacting the lives of young male students. And that's something that you don't really hear too much about. This boy was 16 when it started, according to everything we know according to the allegations which now are facts she's admitted to it so um you know they're proven allegations right at this point she's convicted right she's convicted convicted no more presumptive

innocence she did it correct so yeah she did it she's a registered sex offender now um so my point though is you know we see we've seen recently and we've covered quite a few of these here on Crime Fix, 12 year old students being molested by teachers. You know, the thing that's still the problem, though, it doesn't matter if he's 16. It doesn't matter if he's 17. He's still a kid. She's still the one in the position of authority. Now, say he was of legal age. Say he's 19 and she's 27, and there's still that age difference. You can think whatever you want, but still, she wouldn't have been in that position of authority over him. That's where there's this issue that comes in. So she's using her position as a teacher to engage in this relationship. So, I mean, she's indeed a sex offender, but just saying you only have to register for 10 years, is that saying, well, you're only a little bit of a sex offender. I mean,

doesn't she have the risk of re-offending? She won't be a teacher ever again. But she still may go after younger kids, maybe 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds again. Yeah, this is something, this is a movement that we've seen, especially in the Western states, California, Oregon, Washington, where it used to be sex offender registration was for life. And now we're seeing this push to end that. I think that that is an incredibly bad idea. OK, when it comes to sex offenders, just broadly, child molesters, rapists, I can tell you from personal experience in dealing with these cases over and over again as a prosecutor, you know, sex offenders, especially sexual predators, do not get better. All the therapy in the world does not help them. And we saw this in the 1970s where there's this idea that once they went to prison, if they, quote unquote, got the help that they needed, these guys were released.

And what we learned is that they continue to do this. They might not get caught again. They will reoffend 100 percent. Now, this situation may be a little bit different because of the circumstances. This this woman, you know, I can't imagine her marriage was exactly great, whether she is an actual sexual predator or not, or whether this was, you know, a one off is open for debate. But this idea that sex offenders can do less than lifetime registration is I think I think it's folly by a lot of these legislatures in the Western states. In California, I can't stand it. So the idea that a man could molest a child and then not have lifetime to 90 registrations, what it's called, is absolutely insane. It is madness. You know, so hopefully she doesn't reoffend. Hopefully

regarding her situation, I think she was 23 when she met him. Maybe there's maybe there's some maybe this is the only time she'll do it. I hope that's the case. But that 10 year sex offender registration thing is something that's being applied to men and much younger children. And it is, I think, an abdication of the responsibility these legislatures have to protect children from future sexual abuse by these people that have been caught already. I'll tell you what, some days it feels like the world is absolutely full of predators and they can look like the person next door. Heck, they could even live next door to you or maybe they can even be teaching your children. You have to do whatever you can to keep yourself and especially your kids safe. Truthfinder.com can help you do just that.

Truthfinder is a website that allows you to search public records for any red flag that will help you get information about the people you encounter in your life each day. Log on to Truthfinder and search a name. You'll get a person's address, past and current, any possible criminal records results, even traffic tickets. Maybe you want to search a neighbor, a new friend, or someone who's going to babysit your kids, or maybe just somebody you met when you were out and about who might be a new friend.

Truthfinder will even show you sex offender statuses for people who live in your neighborhood. The cases I cover make it incredibly clear you cannot take too many steps to keep yourself and your kids safe. If you'd like to check out Truthfinder, and I think you should, you can get 50% off of confidential background reports. Just log on to www.truthfinder.com slash lccrimefix and start accessing information about almost anyone. I can tell you right now, people have to want to change. They have to like truly admit. And I can say this because my mom for years, full disclosure, counseled sex offenders with substance abuse issues. And they really, I mean, she counseled people who did prison time and got out of prison. They really have to want to change.

But sometimes there's just something so wrong up here that they can't. But they have to keep themselves away from temptation and they have to really go through intensive therapy. I mean, there's a lot that goes into this. And I feel like there almost has to be a monitoring that goes into this, not just two years probation, but if you're going to register for 10 years, there almost has to be some monitoring with that so that that sex offender status is lifted. That's just my two cents. I want to go through some of these messages, Matt, that they discovered between this teacher, McKenna Kindred, and her students. You know, she is saying stuff to him. Apparently, this was all going on on Instagram. Things like, I want you in my room,

using all kinds of sexual language. They had sex at her house while her husband was out of town. I mean, you're obviously taking steps to hide this relationship. She knew what she was doing was wrong. She was getting jealous, according to these messages, when he was either sitting by or talking to other girls in class. I mean, it's really, really weird and bizarre. Right. She, I mean, the modern era, the prosecution of sex offenders like this, cell phones and computers are, you know, they're incredibly valuable as far as coming up with evidence to prove these cases because they all have, you know, some sort of electronic trail,

either for the specific relationship or what they're into. You know, once you get into a lot of computers, if somebody's into children sexually, you find that almost 10 out of 10 times if you get into their devices. So it's an incredibly useful tool for law enforcement, but also paints the entire picture of their their entire relationship here. So, I mean, I think the way to interpret that in the positive is maybe she's just so dumb about leaving that electronic trail

with the text messages and everything else that hopefully she's not sophisticated in this and she's not going to do it again. But yeah, it's incredibly damning. And because they had that, that's why in the modern era, you know, 15, 20 years ago, this woman would have denied it ever happened. Right. But now because of text messages and that sort of thing, she couldn't, which is why we got a guilty plea and the family didn't have to go through a trial. The school also is likely going to be liable in a civil context for this. This is going to cost the school district. Almost certainly there will be a civil suit filed on this, I would imagine.

And given the way the mother is talking, I would be surprised if that hasn't already been done. But this is an issue. It happens in every state and some of these young teachers. And there's a pretty wide range of consequences. I mean, if you Google some of the other ones, I've even been on your show before where we talked about one. I think that happened in the state of Alabama where the consequences were more severe than what happened here.

So on social media, if some young woman who's a teacher is contemplating doing this with one of her teachers, maybe this disposition doesn't look so bad to her. I don't know. I don't know how much deterrent effect there is. What I can tell you, though, to pick up on your other point, you know, I prosecuted the Rodney Alcala case, and he was a sex offender who kidnapped and attempted to murder an eight-year-old in 1968. And when he finally got caught several years later, he only did 34 months in state prison after getting quote unquote therapy. And when he was released, Rodney Alcala killed at least 13 women that we know of.

But the lead investigator on that, if you do the math and look at the places he was, you know, he might have killed 100 people after that. So when it comes to the truly predatory sex offenders, there is no therapy that works. There's no drug that you can give them. As long as they drop breath, they are going to abuse people. And that's something that it seems like almost like we've forgotten. And unfortunately, it's a lesson that we are going to relearn as states gear more towards early release programs and therapy for sex offenders. It doesn't work. It does not work, especially not for the predatory ones, I can tell you. So hopefully this woman doesn't reoffend 10 years. Hopefully it's enough for her. You know, the judges, you know, I like to defer to the discretion

of judicial officers when they assess something like this. The judge had all the facts and made the determination. I hope he was right. And we'll see. Yeah. I mean, there were some pretty salacious, and salacious may not even be the right word, but graphic maybe is a better word, videos and things exchanged between the two. And one, the victim's mother discovered it, Matt. And the victim was holding his genitalia. And she responded with this video, receiving the video McKenna Kindred did. I wish you were behind me doing this right now. I mean, this is some very, very graphic stuff. I mean, I get it. She's a sex offender. She's having sex with her student. But this is some, wow, pretty adult stuff.

I get that he was 17, but he was still a kid. And we all know that boys especially don't mature as quickly as girls. You know, they're just not as fully developed up top in the prefrontal cortex and stuff like that. I mean, you probably know this from your days as a prosecutor. It's just boys develop more. They don't mature as quickly as girls. So I just think it's really disturbing these women who are in these positions of trust, especially when they're supposed to be nurturing. I mean, maybe it's just a fallacy that women are nurturers. I don't know. What are your thoughts? Well, I think that, you know, one of the, I mean, I hate to use the word funny, but

one of the funny things about this with a lot of these teachers is that this is a 17 year old American male, right? And when she sends that video to him, there is no way that that guy is not going to share it with at least one buddy, you know? And that's why, you know, the idea that they're going to actually be able to keep their mouth shut is pretty much zero. And yet these, these teachers, you know, these women go out and they do this and they get caught over and over and over again. And in this case, the mom found it, but I'm sure he showed it to a friend or two. You know, it's only a matter of

time before they get caught. And that's something that, you know, hopefully that throws a, you know, some caution into them or causes them a little reticence before they before they do this, because this is, you know, they're going to get caught if it's if not for if not the electronic cases, I had a case once where there was a 14 year old and his older brother said it really messed him up. The boys often have to leave school because they're they're the subject of is like red meat for the gossip. You know, they're not there, you know, so this kid had to withdraw from school that impacts their education. Um, but I expect that you, I'm going to be back on your show again soon talking about the next one that comes down the line. I mean, this is a, this is a really interesting thing. There's the, they tend, these women tend to be young, they tend to be married, you know, in the cases that we see. Um, and for whatever reason, they tend to be, you know, quite attractive too. You know, so they, for a 17 year old boy, somebody like, you know, McKenna Kindred, you know, he's, they're going to, they're going to roll with the opportunity, I think more times than not, which is a part of the predation,

I think. So, you know, locker room humor aside on it, this really is, it is sexual abuse. Yeah, you make a very interesting point. You know, one of the not funny things about this, but also kind of funny, Matt, is the fact that McKenna Kindred thought she was going to outsmart everybody on this. And she reported that people were making thesered thought she was going to outsmart everybody on this. And she reported that people were making these allegations that she was having an inappropriate relationship with the student. People were saying stuff online. And so she reported it to the administrators at the

school. And I'm sure that was so that they would say, oh, my goodness, I can't believe this is happening to you. You're being victimized. But obviously, it came back to bite her because they went to the cops and everything came out. So let's hope she's learned her lesson. Matt Murphy, thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here next time. 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 and 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.