Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Teacher Tried to Get Student She Groped To Kill Husband: Cops

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Elena Bardin, 27, is charged with trying to get a student to kill her husband, sexually abusing the boy and giving him nude photos of herself. Kentucky State Police started investigating late last month after they said they found a letter and photos of Bardin in a boy's "living unit" at the Adair County Juvenile Detention Center. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes over the allegations in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit https://forthepeople.com/food to start a claim now!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Producer: Jordan ChaconGuest: Mark Weaver https://x.com/MarkRWeaverCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest 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/lawandcrimenetworkSee 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 teacher who's all over TikTok talking about how much she loves her husband is now accused of trying to hire a student to murder him. And that's not all. Police say Elena Barton sexually abused the boy and more. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Elena Barton is a 27-year-old woman and a mom to a young child. She's also a wife and she was a teacher. On TikTok and Facebook, it looked like she had a really nice, happy life. But Kentucky State Police say Barden has committed crimes, serious felonies. Barden lives in Adair County, Kentucky, which is about 105 miles south of both

Louisville and Lexington. It's small. Less than 20,000 people live there. Elena taught at Adair County Schools. Right now, the district's website doesn't have her photo on it, but it says she taught at Adair Learning Academy, which is a high school. It seems like Elena Barden had a quiet and happy life. But Kentucky State Police say that Barden actually wanted to kill her husband, and she tried to get a boy in juvenile detention that she sexually abused to do it for her. The investigation actually started on March 27th. KSP says a routine search of the juvenile's living units revealed a letter and explicit material found in the boy's possession and that Barton sent those items to the boy. Barden was actually assigned to the facility, according

to state troopers. On April 2nd, detectives arrested Elena Barden and booked her into the county jail on three felonies. They said she sent nude photos of herself to the boy and also touched him sexually and tried to get him to kill her husband. A criminal complaint states the defendant, Elena Barden, asked slash solicited juvenile to kill her husband. A criminal complaint states the defendant, Elena Barton, asked slash solicited juvenile to kill her husband and further provided him with advice on how not to get caught. Elena Barton also touched juveniles private parts on three occasions and further provided to him photographs depicting her being Elena Barton in the nude. So right there, detectives are saying they have photos of Elena

Barden naked. That's really, really bad evidence for her. How else would a kid in juvie get photos of her unless she gave them to him? So let's look at the three charges that she faces. In Kentucky, the criminal solicitation statute states a person is guilty of criminal solicitation when with the intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of a crime, he commands or encourages another person to engage in specific conduct, which would constitute that crime or an attempt to commit that crime, or which would establish the other's complicity in its commission or attempted commission. So all you have to do is encourage someone to commit the

crime of murder in Kentucky, and you've solicited someone to commit the crime. On TikTok, Barden appeared to celebrate her marriage and her family. She looked very, very happy with her husband. One TikTok video actually has a caption that reads, I've loved you eight summers, but honey, I want them all with a yellow heart. Barden remains in custody at the Adair County Jail. This is a law and crime legal alert. Did you know that children are being diagnosed with serious conditions like type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and research is potentially linking ultra processed foods to these outcomes? Morgan & Morgan is stepping in to fight to hold food companies accountable.

With decades of experience fighting large corporations, they are ready to stand up for families that deserve justice. If your child under the age of 21 has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit www.forthepeople.com slash food or scan the QR code that you see on your screen to learn more. So to talk about this situation with Alina Barden, I want to bring in somebody who has prosecuted teachers before for sex crimes, and he is Mark Weaver. He serves as a special prosecutor in the state of Ohio, north of Kentucky, and occasionally sits as a judge. So Mark, I want your first reaction upon reading about this case where we have a teacher accused of soliciting a student to murder her husband. This was troubling. I have prosecuted teachers for sex offenses numerous times. This is

more troubling because this child was in a juvenile detention center, which means he already has some serious problems. We put them there to rehabilitate them. The juvenile system is all bent on rehabilitation. She was his assigned teacher. So every teacher needs to keep hands off the kids. But in particular, a kid who's troubled and in a juvenile detention center, we really need to keep hands off the kids. And that's what really stood out to me. I mean, this is somebody who was already in trouble, who's in jail, essentially, kiddie jail, to murder her husband. And she's also accused, and she's accused at this point, she's facing these charges, she has not been convicted, of then sending him naked pictures

of herself and then also placing her hands on his private parts so there's a lot going on here I it's just if this is indeed true and she is convicted of this it's even more brazen than your typical case because of the vulnerable State this kid was in this position um she was even in a greater position of power than usual because of his incarceration. That's true. Kids who are in juvie live in fear of having privileges taken away that kids who just go to normal school wouldn't have to worry about. So you're right. There is an additional ability for a teacher to ruin a kid's life by taking away their privilege. I've also noticed in my career prosecuting sex offenses is that predators pick on those kids who are the most vulnerable. Someone in juvenile detention, she probably knew about his history. She would have had access to

his file to be able to prepare a teaching plan and know more about the reason he was there. Predators know when there's a victim who's going to be vulnerable. We don't know for sure that happened in this case. That happens in most of these sex offenses cases. They're keeping a pretty tight lid on this case. They've put out a few details here and there, but all in all, they aren't putting out a whole lot of information about this case. You know, the court, we asked to, you know, get a camera in there. You know, could we get a Zoom link? And the court said no, which I find kind of unusual.

Is that because there's like an embarrassment level? There's an extra layer of embarrassment with this case, Mark. But we've got a teacher accused of something really horrendous. But also, she was in a juvenile detention center. I mean, is that maybe a part of this? Could be, but this is not a juvenile case. The criminal case for this teacher allegedly hiring the kid to kill her husband and or touching and sending negative pictures. That's an adult case. That's held in adult court. And the standard across the country is, at least in state courts, not in federal court, standard is cameras should be allowed in unless there's a specific rule that says otherwise. Now, if the judge wants to hold a hearing and deduce evidence

about, in this particular case, justice cannot be done if cameras are in the court, then the judge should have that hearing. But I was troubled when I heard this judge would not allow the public to learn more about this case by having cameras in court, because this one is more difficult set of facts in many of these sex offense cases where private person in a private home, just as illegal, but this was state paid person in a juvenile detention center run by the state. So the public ought to have a little more access into those facts. That's kind of what I was thinking. And that's why I wondered, because I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked when the court told me, yeah, you can attend. You can attend in person, but the judge is not allowing a camera in the courtroom. I was stunned because in my experience covering courts that they wouldn't allow the cameras in. And I wondered if it was because she was in, you know, a juvenile detention center, if there's this weird level of embarrassment and they're trying to like, you know, keep the keep the public out, keep the public out of out of this, because this is just like her initial appearance. This is her first court appearance. This is not the trial. This is not a preliminary hearing or anything like that. Well, the juvenile won't even be there at the initial appearance.

The juvenile presumably is still in the juvenile court center. This is about her. And even at the trial, there are numerous protections that judges can and do put on a trial where they'll tell the camera operator, do not show the child's face. Or when the child testifies, only show their hands or cut away to something else that's only hear their voice. So a judge who's worried about the child being put in a tough spot, now this is a 17-year-old child, still a child legally, but a judge who's worried about a child has numerous safeguards available to him or child, still a child legally. But a judge who's worried about a child has numerous safeguards available to him or her to protect a juvenile victim, like in this case.

I want to talk about, I want to go back a little bit to just this whole issue of this woman, Alina Barden, who is 27 years old. So she, she's probably been a teacher maybe for like five years or so. She's assigned to this juvenile detention center. And it makes me wonder how, you know, is there more to this? I mean, is this the first time, you know, she's got photos all over Facebook talking about her, you know, showing her with her husband. She's got TikTok videos where she talks about her husband. She looks they look pretty happy. So this is a pretty stark chain of, you know, it's a pretty stark contrast to be talking about getting a kid in juvie.

How I don't even know how a kid in juvie would kill your husband unless he gets out someday to do it. If this is all proven to be true, you know, it's a pretty stark contrast how she's going from that, getting a kid in juvie to kill her husband. But it kind of makes you wonder, is the school and our police going to go back and look to see if possibly there's more that they don't know about from other kids or other things going on in the past? Two different things are happening here. One is when I started prosecuting child sex offenses 20 years ago, social media was not as ubiquitous as it is now. Now it's a part of the daily lives of the children, of course, but also of the teachers. A 27-year-old teacher has spent most of her adult life on social media. And it tends to fuel people's passions because looking at photos and videos

are so easy and everybody's dressed up and looking like they're living their best life. And so that brings out the worst in the few people who wind up offending. Another point when we talk about these juvenile sex offenses and teachers is these teachers sometimes blur the line between their life as a 20-something. And you think about a 17-year-old, he may look older than 17. He's still a child or a juvenile for the purposes of the law. And so in their minds, there's just not that much difference between them. We look to the schools to make it very clear that there has to be some boundary. There has to be some safeguards. These are not your friends. Your students are not your friends.

They're not your social crowd. And so social media is not the cause of these crimes, but it is a platform and a setting where more of these crimes can occur. So if you're the prosecutor on this case, Mark, and you and I, you know, I covered one of your cases involving teachers, coaches doing this in Ohio. If you're the prosecutor on this case and you're working with the cops on this case, where do you go next on this? Because this all developed rather quickly. You know, they get the information from juvenile detention on, you know, I think the 27th of March, they move in and arrest her on April 2nd. Where do you go next on this case? I'd like to think that law enforcement, when they learned about this, went right to a judge

and asked for a search warrant for her other devices to see where else, at the very least, what other ways she's communicating with this particular juvenile. But when you get the devices, and a lot of people don't realize this, when you get the devices, you get everything. You're seeing the photos. You're seeing the videos. Some people will say, oh, Mark, Snapchat. You know, that get everything. You're seeing the photos, you're seeing the videos. Some people will say, oh, Mark, Snapchat, that gets deleted. A good crime lab can even pull stuff off of Snapchat that's been deleted. And so as a result, I'd like to think that they've already served

search warrants for the devices of this teacher. And as a result, they may be working up cases against other juveniles. We don't know that, but that would be typical in most cases. Get the devices and then you find things that you didn't expect when you're reviewing the devices for information about the particular crime that started the issue. I'm asking you to speculate here, but do they find more? Almost always when law enforcement gets phones, we find things we didn't expect to see. Sometimes it's child porn. Sometimes it's evidence of conspiracy. Sometimes it's other victims. Sometimes it's talking to somebody about the crime, which we can then go interview that person that might become a witness for the prosecution.

All of us live through our phones. Our entire lives are there. And search warrants that get phones bring a whole trove of information that typically will help the case. And this isn't the only case in the news recently where, you know, a school staffer is accused of doing this. I mean, there was one in Columbus, Ohio. I mean, this woman, Stephanie Demetrius, approached a student and offered to pay him $2,000, was going to give a $250 down payment to kill her husband. I'm kind of thinking to myself, it's like the worst plan ever. Yeah, that's a low rent. I mean, first of all, don't kill somebody. Don't hire somebody but i don't want to be too

flippant this is serious these are serious felony charges but that's a rather low amount of money for a hitman that's a kind of a discount bargain hitman it's all wrong it's it's showing that our society continues to have people who just are floating without any moral north without any true compass about what's right and what's wrong. And as a result, some of them are becoming teachers. And now having said that, you know, my mom was a principal and a teacher. We all know teachers we love. Nearly every teacher is a good person who wants to help his or her students. But these ones who step out and act criminally need to be held accountable. And they need to be a watchword for everybody, every other teacher, that we need to build in these safeguards, build in these boundaries,

and not have these personal relationships between teachers and children. Everything between a teacher and a child, parents need to know about. No child should be talking to an adult, certainly not an employee of the government, about their sexual lives. That is inappropriate in every instance, and parents need to know about it. Yeah, most certainly. And both of these women are innocent until proven guilty. These are allegations at this point in time, but Elena Barton is in some serious trouble down there in the Bluegrass State, And well, it's really the Commonwealth of Kentucky. And we will see what happens with this. Mark Weaver, thank you so much.

Thank you. Now, just to recap, the investigation started on March 27th. Kentucky State Police say someone searched that boy's living unit and found a letter at the juvenile detention center. And they also found sexually explicit material in his possession and that it came from Barden. State troopers said Barden was assigned to the facility. On April 2nd, detectives arrested Elena Barden and booked her into the county jail on three felonies. They said she sent nude photos of herself to the boy and also touched him sexually and tried to get him to kill her husband. A criminal complaint states the defendant, Elena Barton, asked slash solicited Juvenal to kill her husband

and further provided him with advice on how not to get caught. Elena Barton also touched Juvenal's private parts on three occasions and further provided to him photographs depicting her being Elena Barton in the nude. I reached out to the Adair County schools at the time of this recording. I have not heard back. I was requesting comment about her current status and whether or not they had anything to say about these charges. The next step, the attorneys will present this. The Commonwealth's attorneys will present this case to a grand jury. So more charges are possible. And that's it for

this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.