Transcription
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 Anginette 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 Clare Burus 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 remember back in the 90s when Mary Kay Letourneau was arrested and charged with raping her 12-year-old student, Vili Fualaau. Letourneau served time in prison and even gave birth to two children fathered by Fualaau. 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, Annette, 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. But I can tell you, based upon all the hundreds of predator investigations 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, uh, 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 there that is legitimate concern, the pornography aspect of this. It creates this fantasy, but also, I mean, this is illegal.
I mean, this is not illegal—it is illegal. And the other thing that psychiatrists will tell you, Annette, 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—well, 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 [Music] 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 True Blue a couple of months ago, you had a literally a woman in her 70s at a private Christian school who was, you know, sexually involved with at least one and maybe more students. Who suspects somebody of that, you know? It it 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 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, maybe I was just fortunate that we didn't have that going on in the places where I went to school—um, 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 there—I think that's part of it. I mean, yeah, I think it's 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—um, 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, you know, at least now, because of all the awareness and all the investigations that, you know, we've done and so many different law enforcement agencies across the country have done, you know, the justice system takes this seriously. It's not just swept under the rug; you know, these cases are prosecuted. District Attorneys across the country take it very seriously; law enforcement takes it very seriously; and, 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 is responsibility, and the federal government has a responsibility to set a baseline of a background check. So obviously there's a criminal background check. Um, there should be some sort of interview that is conducted by a school administrator who is practiced in psychology and perhaps psychiatry to say, okay, you know, does this person seem fit? Um, you know, 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, you know, have 100% do 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 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.
Yeah, 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 espe—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, sexually explicit picture thinking it was a girl and 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—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 impulsive—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 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 ask 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. Um, so I I just think—back it off, you know, schluff it off on me and in my investigations, you know, I mean, you know, so you gotta watch this—I haven't introduced my son yet to Chris Hansen. Well, maybe it's not age-appropriate yet, but I mean, there's all—there's always a reason to raise alarm without you being overprotective or seeming overprotective. You know, you can always—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 happen 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 Hansen. That's fine; I'm comfortable with that.
We will blame it on Hansen. Chris Hansen, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anginette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow.