Sex with their students: The power, the risk, the shameExperts: For female teachers in dangerous liaisons, it's a matter of psychology, authority and the thrill

By LISA REDMOND, Sun Staff

Former schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau walked out of prison yesterday, her freedom reviving a sordid saga that began when she had a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old male student. The Washington state educator doomed herself with a zealous pursuit of Vili Fualaau, now 21, resulting in national media coverage, two children by him, and seven years behind bars.

Many people thought Letourneau was an aberration. But she belongs to a rare but notorious group of female teachers who have been convicted or accused of having an illegal sexual relationship with a student.

Locally, two names stand out: Karen Cross and Michelle Amundson.

Thirteen years ago Cross, a Tyngsboro High School special-needs teacher, was accused of raping a 15-year-old male student. Her case shocked the close-knit community. Cross was convicted and sent to prison for six months, although she maintained her innocence.




Last year, Amundson, a sixth-grade teacher, was charged with raping a 12-year-old male student at the McCarthy Middle School in Chelmsford. Her case could be resolved as soon as Aug. 17.

Some cases make national headlines. The most famous one involved Pamela Smart, of Derry, N.H., who began a sexual relationship with one of her teenage students at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton. She used sex to coerce the teen into killing her husband, Greg, in 1990. The case spawned books and a made-for-TV movie.

Then there is Debra Beasley Lafave, a 23-year-old Florida newlywed who was recently accused of performing oral sex on one of her 14-year-old students.

Amber Jennings, 30, an English teacher at Shephard Hill Regional High School in Dudley, was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student over a nine-month period. Jennings, of Sturbridge, pleaded innocent on Monday to inducing a minor under 18 to have unlawful sexual intercourse. She was released on $1,000 cash bail.

There are also the lesser-known cases.

Denise McBryde, 38, is a former private school teacher in Florida who was sentenced to three years for having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old Tampa student in 1998.

Minnesota high school teacher Julie Feil, 32, who pleaded guilty in 1998 to having a three-month relationship with a 15-year-old boy in her English class. Feil, who had taught for four years at Hastings (Minn.) High School and was head coach of the speech team, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison.

Kimberly Merson, 24, a substitute teacher and cheerleading coach at Francis Scott Key High School in Maryland, was charged with inappropriate sexual conduct after she allegedly supplied liquor to eight boys between the ages of 15 and 17. After the boys got drunk, Merson took them to her home, stripped for them and had sex with them. She received an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty in 2002.

Tanya Hadden, 33, a former teacher at Cajon High School in San Bernadino, Calif., was sentenced in June 2002 to six months in jail followed by five years probation after she admitted to running off to Las Vegas with her 15-year-old student.

In Amundson's case, the 31-year-old Chelmsford woman is accused of having a relationship with a sixth-grade student from January to April 2003. The liaisons occurred in her classroom at McCarthy Middle School and other town locations.

Sources told The Sun a staff member observed Amundson and the boy alone in the classroom after school. When the staff member walked by a short time later, the door was closed and a partition was blocking the window. Suspicious about why the window would be blocked, the staffer went to an adjoining room, opened the door, and witnessed Amundson engaged in a sexual act with the boy, sources said.

Amundson resigned her teaching job of three years, and put the home she shares with her husband up for sale.

In the Tyngsboro case, Cross was convicted after a jury trial in 1991. During the trial, the male victim testified Cross had sex with him. Cross vigorously denied it. She was sentenced to one year in jail, but Judge Robert Barton later reduced her sentence to six months.

Barton, now retired, told The Sun that the most damning evidence against Cross were love letters she had written to the boy alluding to their encounter.

"I'll never forget it. It was like listening to two kids in love. The letters positively did her in," he said.

Barton said he was never sure what motivated Cross.

"The teachers who do this, it's like they fall in love with these young kids in their own weird way," he said.

Well-known Boston-area criminologist Jack Levin sees it another way. He said teachers, like doctors and businesspeople, sometimes abuse their positions.

"Some teachers take advantage of the power they have over students," said Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University.

"In some cases the adult is unable to have a healthy thriving relationship with another adult," Levin said. That person turns to a child, who will not reject them, he added.

The power factor is not uncommon. Levin quoted President Clinton's memoir, explaining why the president had an affair with Monica Lewinsky: Because he could.

"Clinton was in a position of power that allowed him to violate the rules," Levin said.

Levin speculated that some "catastrophic event" may have turned these teachers into child molesters.

"Sometimes a person suffers a catastrophic loss, such as losing a job, a financial blow, the loss of a relationship, or a nasty divorce," Levin said. The result may be self-destructive behavior.

"Instead of doing drugs or alcohol, she (the teacher) had an (illegal) relationship," he said. "She'd have been better off shoplifting."

Of course, there are the thrill-seekers.

Levin said some people think happiness means maximizing excitement in a high-risk situation. The forbidden fruit of sexual contact with a student would qualify, he said.

Experts say female sex offenders are rare compared to male sex offenders, representing only 10 percent of sex offenders, according to Court TV's Matt Bean. Justice Department figures indicate the number is even lower, about 3 percent.

Kenneth V. Lanning, a retired supervisory agent at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., told the Valley Advocate, "There is the stereotypical concept that only women and children get victimized. That's only because boys who have been sexually victimized don't talk."

Levin added, boys consider it a "badge of honor" to have sex with an older woman.

Lisa Redmond's e-mail address is [email protected] .