Police Investigation of Loudonville School Teacher Concluded by the Loudonville Police Department

Joe Lyons • January 12, 2024

The Loudonville Police Department has closed its pending investigation of a Loudonville school teacher. The department received information on April 7, 2023 that multiple students had raised concerns that the teacher may have made contact with a minor female student’s buttocks with his hand outside of school hours and property. Preliminary investigation produced additional concerns that the teacher may be engaging in a relationship beyond an ordinary teacher-student relationship with the same student.

The student and the teacher participated in one interview each. Both denied any physical contact occurred. The teacher characterized his relationship with the student as being like “family” and said she was “like a little sister” to him. The teacher also acknowledged to an officer that he had exchanged text messages with the student.

The cellular telephones of the teacher and the student were obtained and searched. The student’s phone contained 142,375 text messages that were exchanged between the teacher and the student between January of 2021 and April of 2023. All text messages were reviewed as part of the investigation.

While the vast majority of text messages related to ordinary high school matters, officers were concerned with periodic messages related to the current and/or potential future relationship status between the teacher and the student. In the summer of 2021 , text messages from the teacher’ phone to the student’s phone stated that the student was his “best friend” as well as numerous discussions of their dating relationships with other people.

By early 2022, messages from the teacher’s phone continued to refer to the student as his “best friend” and telling her that other people would not understand their relationship. In May of 2022, a text message from his phone stated “I’m never leaving you. You’re not leaving me.”

By the summer of 2022, text messages from the teacher’s phone included comments like “I want to know everything about you” and discussions of the opportunities they would have to spend time together alone after the student graduates from high school. By that time, the text messages from the teacher’s phone were using the term “love” to describe the sender’s feelings toward the student. Text messages from the teacher’s phone to the student stating “I love you” became more numerous, along with text messages from his phone to hers talking about how they will be able to spend more time together after she is an adult. Another message stated that his “life would suck” without the student, and they “belong together.”

A photograph found on the teacher’s phone and date stamped March of 2023 depicted a piece of paper with a handwritten list titled “Reasons [TEACHER NAME REDACTED] loves [STUDENT NAME REDACTED].” “Reasons” on the list included “l love that we’re gonna get married” and “l love that we’re gonna have babies together.”

Officers completed an exhaustive review of the content on both phones. The text messages referring to “love” and plans to spend time together after high school graduation raised concerns that the teacher’s actions could include criminal behaviors and led to a lengthy and exhaustive investigation. After review of all collectible evidence on both phones, no communications or images evidenced the commission of a crime under Ohio law. No criminal charges will be filed at this time.