Teacher Accused of Sex Abuse
Posted 3/3/2005 05:21 PM
Toni Lynn Woods
Photo Credit: West Virginia Regional Jail The Braxton County teacher admitted having sex with three middle school students, State Police said.
Story by Christine D’Antonio Email | Bio
A Braxton County middle school teacher is in police custody after allegedly confessing to sexual misconduct with five of her students.
Toni Lynn Woods, 37, of Strange Creek was arrested Wednesday on eight counts of sexual assault.
State Police said several students reported they had been treated or touched inappropriately.
In the criminal compliant filed against Woods, she admitted she had sexual intercourse with three students a total of four times.
She also admitted to performing oral sex on two different juveniles a total of four times.
Braxton County Superintendent Carolyn Long wouldn't comment on the allegations, saying it's a personnel issue. But she said district officials take allegations of abuse seriously.
"This school system acts immediately," Long said, "and follows through any way they can to see that that risk is removed."
Woods was being held in the Central Regional Jail in Sutton on $100,000 bond.
Braxton County Prosecutor William C. Martin said the State Police investigation began when a family member of one of the children complained.
Martin said Woods resigned her job as a sixth grade teacher and permanently surrendered her teaching certificate.

Tenn. Teacher Accused of Sleeping With 13-Year-Old Student
Wednesday, February 09, 2005

McMINNVILLE, Tenn. — A Warren County elementary teacher has been charged with having a sexual relationship with one of her students, a 13-year-old boy.
Pamela Rogers Turner , 27, was charged Monday with 15 counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and 13 counts of statutory rape . All the charges involved the same boy.
Turner teaches physical education and coached girls basketball at Centertown Elementary, a Warren County school with grades kindergarten through eight in McMinnville.
District Attorney General Dale Potter said investigators believe some of the offenses happened at the school and some at the boy's home.
Turner lived at the boy's house "for a brief period of time when she was moving from residence to residence," Potter said Tuesday. The boy's parents knew she was living there but didn't know anything about a sexual relationship, Potter said.
Potter declined to comment on the nature of the relationship between Turner and her student, but he said investigators discovered multiple acts of sexual intercourse.
"It's attracting attention because it's a female teacher, and that's a little out of the ordinary," Potter said. "But for us, a sex abuse case is a sex abuse case."
Turner was recently divorced from Chris Turner, who is the head boys basketball coach at Warren County High School, according to the Southern Standard newspaper in McMinnville.
Turner was arrested Monday in Clarkrange, her hometown in Fentress County about 55 miles northeast of McMinnville, Potter said.
Conviction on all counts could be punished by up to 100 years in prison. But Potter said it was more likely that a conviction would mean a minimum of a year to several years in prison.
Arraignment was set for Feb. 23.

Pamela Rogers Turner and her now-estranged husband, Christopher Turner, had this studio photo included in their holiday cards a year ago. She now faces felony sex charges involving a 13-year-old at the school where she teaches.

Thursday, 02/10/05
Teacher's sex case has town in turmoil By ROB JOHNSON, BRAD SCHRADE and JAY HAMBURG
Staff Writers

As nation watches, Warren Co. hamlet struggles with accusations that 'role model' abused boy, 13
CENTERTOWN, Tenn. — There's a Pamela Rogers Turner — the sweet-tempered, grade-school teacher who is seen as a role model for students.
And there's a Pamela Rogers Turner who in her college days was the glitzy Ms. Monday Nitro of World Championship Wrestling at Spring Break festivities in 1997.
The immense difference in those two images of the 27-year-old married teacher and coach has left townspeople and acquaintances here confused, as recent charges thrust this tiny town and its attractive teacher into a national media storm.
Many here are having a hard time coming to grips with the knowledge that the district attorney general has filed 28 sexual misconduct charges, accusing her of having sex with a 13-year-old boy who attended her school.
It's that contrast also that has drawn attention from a national press corps that has followed two fairly recent and similar cases of female teachers in Washington and Florida accused of having sex with minor boys.
Dale Potter, who serves as prosecutor for Warren County, said that, while some in the media seemed to be highlighting the relationship of a young boy and an attractive older woman, ''for us, a sex abuse case is a sex abuse case.''
''It's one thing for kids to think about and fantasize about a potential Mrs. Robinson,'' he said, referring to a seductive, older woman character in the movie The Graduate. ''It's another for that Mrs. Robinson to act.''
Those acts, he said, are felonies, not fantasies.
Turner's estranged husband, Christopher, was not available for comment. But the 31-year-old high school basketball coach has filed for divorce, citing ''inappropriate marital conduct.''
Their Christmas card from a year ago shows a smiling, embracing couple standing in front of a mural of a moonlit cruise ship.
It's another piece of the puzzle that no longer seems to fit the image that many acquaintances saw.
They know Pamela Turner as a former high school basketball star and a young woman admired for her polite personality and charming ways.
But Potter sees a child abuser.
His office has charged Turner with 15 counts of sexual battery and 13 counts of statutory rape. She is accused of having sex with a 13-year-old boy who attended Centertown Elementary, where Turner taught physical education and coached basketball.
If convicted on all counts, Turner could face more than 100 years behind bars, although Potter said that a more likely sentence would run from one to several years.
Messages left for Turner's lawyer were not returned immediately.
Calls to a cell phone known to be Turner's also were not returned, but a message stated, ''Thank you so much for the support and please keep me in your prayers.''
Many can't comprehend it
Billy Medley has served Pam Turner plenty of meals at his family's meat-and-three restaurant in Centertown, where the woman ate regularly with her teaching friends.
The restaurant is a few hundred yards from the gray elementary schoolhouse where the teacher worked and where her alleged victim attended school.
The boy, who is known to many in the community, is described by Medley as ''an awesome athlete, a real superstar.''
Medley had praise, too, for the teacher, who played on a state championship high school basketball team in Fentress County coached by her father, Lamar Rogers.
''It's a shame you can't interview her right now,'' Medley said yesterday. ''She's an awesome woman. She's been a real role model for the children.''
Centertown is a small community tucked into a rural corner of Warren County, where people specialize in growing plants that are intended to be shipped elsewhere.
''I'll tell you, Centertown is getting to be known for something else now,'' he said.
Opinion is mixed about the serious charges facing Turner.
''I do believe it somewhat,'' said resident Howard Thomas, noting the lengthy list of charges that Warren County authorities have leveled at the young teacher. ''But of course, you're innocent until proven guilty.''
Turner frequented a tanning salon adjacent to Medley's restaurant.
Medley said that the teacher was quite proper and modest when she arrived to take her turn on the tanning bed. He said she was an accomplished athlete herself and that the little children at the school, where his 6-year-old daughter also attends, adored the teacher.
''They would scream, 'Mrs. Turner! Mrs. Turner!' whenever they saw her,'' Medley said.
As school was letting out yesterday, parents lined up single file in the pickup lane.
Warren County Director of Schools Jerry Hale said that he had had more calls from media than from local parents about Centertown Elementary.
The school has a full-time counselor, he said, but there were no reports of distressed children.
Outside the school yesterday afternoon, big satellite TV trucks lumbered into position for the late-afternoon newscasts.
Parent Frank Tibbetts sat in his idling car waiting for the bell to ring. He emphasized that no one knows for sure what happened except for the defendant and her alleged victim. But the gossip was thick inside the classrooms, according to what his children told him.
''If it did happen, it's a mighty sad thing,'' he said. ''You need to be able to trust your children's teachers.''
Female sex abusers are rare
Metro police Sgt. Mark Chesnut has spent eight years investigating sexual child abuse.
''Less than 5% of our cases are female perpetrators,'' said Chesnut, who very recently transferred to another division.
Chesnut said he could not recall any cases of female teachers being accused of sexual abuse on a student in Davidson County during his time as a sex crimes investigator.
Vanderbilt University clinical psychologist Tom Catron said that the sexual abuse of a minor could have long-lasting effects on the child.
He said the depth of the devastation would depend on the trauma associated with the abuse and on the effectiveness of the treatment.
Catron said that while in some cases adult perpetrators will claim that their young victims were consensual partners, it is very difficult to see a 13-year-old as being on equal emotional footing with the older sex partner.
He said the fact that the adult charged in the Warren case was an authority figure could hurt the child's sense of security and ''distort their sense of what sexual intimacy is. It could really scar them for life.''
Hometown doubts charges
Turner comes from a well-known family of educators in Fentress County. Her father is a legendary girls basketball coach at Clarkrange High School, having won seven state championships in 29 years. Her mother is an elementary school teacher.
Turner started at power forward on the 1995 state championship team.
Fentress County Circuit Court Clerk Frank Smith said news of her arrest had been swirling around Jamestown and that people didn't believe it. Smith, an avid booster of the Clarkrange basketball team, said he had known her since she was a little girl.
Smith followed her career in college, too, and said she played one year at Tennessee Tech before transferring to Cumberland University.
He said many people in town believed the accusations were mixed up with a nasty divorce filed in January.
''She was a super ball player and a super person,'' Smith said. ''She's one of the warmest people and nicest people you'd ever meet.''
Former state legislator Tommy Burnett, who splits time between Nashville and his home in Fentress County, said his daughter was friends with Turner growing up. Burnett said she would come around his family's home.
''I never saw anything out of her that would give rise to my belief she would be guilty,'' Burnett said. ''She's got a super, outgoing personality.''
The Rogers family also has a history with chicken farming — one of Fentress County's main industries.
Attorney Skid Garrett said his son was good friends with Turner's only brother. They played football together in high school and his son would spend time at the Rogers home.
''It's going to be devastating to this community if Pamela is found guilty,'' he said. ''Frankly, everybody just loves her here.''

Other recent teacher-student sex cases

National cases

January 2005: Sarah Bench-Salorio, 28, a middle school English teacher in Orange County, Calf., was arrested on suspicion of having sex with two former students. Another accuser came forward this month, and she also was charged with lewd acts against him. The students were all under 14 years of age.

November 2004: Senorita Walker, 33, a high school teacher in Chicago, was accused of giving three teenage boys money, alcohol and marijuana to have sex with her. Walker paid a 15-year-old student and two friends $100 per session to have sex with her, officials said.

More about Walker at Smoking Gun

Inverness - It's happened again. Another female school employee is accused of having sex with an under-age male student. This case is in Citrus County.
Teacher's aide Tammy Lee Huggins is charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a child. The victim and the woman admit they had sex several times since Christmas break.
It is the buzz at Citrus High School where 35- year-old teacher's aid Tammy Lee Huggins and a 15-year-old student admit in court documents they had sexual relations with each other between 15 and 20 times Police spokesperson Gail Tierney said the victim is devastated.

A female teacher had sex with a 14-year-old female student after "marrying" her in a pagan wedding ritual, according to police in South Haven, Mich.
Elizabeth Miklosovic, 36, is charged with five sexual encounters with her ex-student, including first-degree criminal sexual conduct and second-degree sexual conduct.
If convicted of the first-degree charge, Miklosovic faces life in prison.

More about this

June 2004: Debra Lafave, 24, a remedial reading teacher in Tampa, Fla., was accused of having sex with a then-14-year-old student in her home, classroom and car. The case drew national headlines and, six months after her arrest, her name was still in the top 10 of weekly Google searches, the St. Petersburg Times reported. Lafave's attorney is pursuing an insanity defense.

More about Lafave at Smoking Gun

AND IT IS HAPPENING IN NORTH CAROLINA TOO

Affidavit alleges tryst with student
Teacher charged with sex offensesTew was released on bond.
By JERRY ALLEGOOD, Staff Writer
GREENVILLE -- A Greenville high school teacher accused of having sex with a student called and wrote to him before meeting him in a school parking lot one night wearing pajamas and carrying a bottle of tequila, court documents say.
Katherine B. Tew, 30, has been charged with a sex offense and with taking indecent liberties with a student. She was arrested Monday and freed on $10,000 bond pending a hearing April 15 in Pitt County District Court.
Tew, an English teacher at South Central High School near Greenville, has been on leave with pay since an investigation began Jan. 25. Efforts to reach her failed Wednesday, and court papers did not list her attorney.
The investigation began after a deputy who works as a school resource officer reported that a student said he had sex with Tew, according to an affidavit for a search warrant. Investigators on Feb. 1 searched the home that Tew shares with her husband, an assistant football coach, and seized a pair of pajamas with cartoons of moons and stars on them and a handwritten letter that referred to the student.
Lt. Karen Kilpatrick, supervisor of the major crimes unit, said in the six-page typed affidavit that the student had several letters from Tew and others that he had written to her. The student told investigators she referred in letters to "hooking up" and "getting together," the affidavit said.
The boy had saved text messages from Tew on his cell phone. The investigator said the last, dated Dec. 15, said, "Can you or would you want to see me tomorrow night? Home alone would love to see you. Call cell and leave a message. Y or N."
Kilpatrick said the student described cell phone calls, including one in which he said he asked Tew, "Why would you do this to your husband?"
The student told investigators that he received a note the next day in which Tew thanked him for making her realize that she loved her husband. Kilpatrick said the student told her Tew did not call or send notes for several days, "and then it started again."
According to the affidavit, the teenager said Tew asked him to meet her at a parking lot near the school's football field. According to Kilpatrick, the teenager said he intended to tell her that he could not continue the relationship.
Kilpatrick said the student told her that Tew, smelling of alcohol, was wearing pajamas and clutching a bottle of tequila when she got in his vehicle. She attempted to get him to drink some, according to the boy's account, and he told her he did not drink.
The boy "stated that Ms. Tew kissed him and they started to have sex in the back seat of his vehicle," the affidavit said.
As a condition of Tew's release on bond, she cannot communicate with or threaten the prosecuting witness. She also was ordered to stay off school property and not to be alone in the presence of a child younger than 18.
Deborah Long, a spokeswoman for the Pitt County schools, said Tew's status would be considered after school officials review information from the sheriffs department.
Staff writer Jerry Allegood can be reached in Greenville at (252) 752-8411 or jerrya@newsobserver.com.