"Bad Teachers" Episode Ten: Mary McCormick, Ashley Burkett, April Watson

0:13 Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite. I am your host, Jim Chapman, and we are back with another episode in the Bad Teachers series. Before we get into today's episode, I need to shout out the newest Global Celebrity member, Miss Stacy Hazelton, from Niles, Michigan. Really cool history, y'all with Niles. It became a city over three hundred years ago and Niles is actually known as the City of four Flags. And there's a reason for this. It has a real lengthy history in over those three hundred years, the flags that have flown over the city of Niles include the French, the British, the Native American flag, and finally the US flag in eighteen thirty two. So once again, thank you so much, Miss Stacy Hazelton for joining us on the Global Celebrity Patreon tier.

1:18 If you want to see what all the fuss is about, go to Patreon at patreon dot com slash Exposed to podcast Files. We do everything from early release, commercial free episodes to bonus episodes to files upload tons of those, and we also do quarterly guests for our global celebrity members. Just tons of things you can get out there bonus episodes, so check it out. And I appreciate each and every one of these Patreon supporters. They're the reason this show even exists. And we'll get into today's episode, and this time I am bringing you to the great state of Arkansas and Saloam Springs, Arkansas specifically to tell you about the case of Mary Faith McCormick, who was a thirty two year old six grade social studies teacher at Saloam Springs Intermediate School. So we're going to jump right into it.

2:21 And on August eighth of twenty fourteen, the Salom Springs Police Department, they get a call from the parents of a twelve year old female and these parents stated that their daughter had barred the phone of one of her friends at school and she saw some inappropriate messages between McCormick and a thirteen year old male. So police they go interview this girl and she has quite the story to tell. Now. According to the twelve year old, she wanted to send kind of a silly picture of herself through Snapchat from that thirteen year old boy's phone. So she opens the Snapchat application and she notices a social studies teacher at that school, who was Mary Faith McCormick, had snapped the thirteen year old boy who owned the phone, So, like curious kids are, she clicked on the snap and there is a picture of Mary Faith McCormick in a bathroom smiling with her cleavage pushed up, kind of like Dolly Parton style. Right now, at this point, the twelve year old is like, whoa. She then snaps the teacher back and she says, quote, why would you send that, to which McCormick responds, why don't you like it? Now, Remember, McCormick thinks this is the thirteen year old boy snapping

3:52 her back. McCormick then responds with quote, I want to climb on top of U your dick unquote. So the twelve year old looks through the snap messages further and she discovers one picture of McCormick with wet hair while showing her breast, and then a text accompanying that that said quote, I'm not dirty anymore unquote. This is a thirty two year old teacher talking to a thirteen year old boy. So this twelve year old girl she goes home and she tells her parents and here we are, So the first thing police want to do is they want to speak with this thirteen year old kid. They go pay him a visit, and according to the affidavit, the kid that is referred to in that Affidavid as BB, says that two weeks into the summer, he and his friend were talking about how hot Miss McCormick was, and BB was telling his friend, who was also thirteen, that he thought felt like miss McCormick was quote into him.

5:04 So his friend he dares him to try and hook up with Miss McCormick. So Bbe starts snapping with Miss McCormick and they snap back and forth over several weeks, and she's definitely playing into it. Although the affidavit doesn't get real specific into what exactly she was saying to this thirteen year old, it does say that right off the bat, the teacher was letting the thirteen year old into her life verbally by quote sharing very personal information. And that could be anything from you know, her talking about her marriage, maybe she was having a bad marriage and incidentally she was married with a daughter, or it could have been even more personal than that doesn't really say, but regardless, that's what you would definitely call the grooming stage.

5:58 When you hear me talk about the grooming stages is a perfect example. She is wanting to see how he's going to respond to her taking things from a teacher student level to a more personal level, if he freaked out, because somewhere in that text conversation she says, you know, I'm having problems in my marriage, and he's like, I don't want to hear about all that. Well, she knows to back off, but if he continues to play into it, that's grooming. That's what she's trying to do. Then it gets even more egregious when the student tells police. He asks for a picture of her vagina, which she sends to him, and then she requests a picture of his quote rock Hard Penis, which he sends to her. So BB continues on and he tells the police about five weeks prior to when the officer shows up at his house to interview him, BB had spent the night at a friend's house and they decided to walk by Miss McCormick's house, and when they did, she was standing outside and he said she invited them in to watch a movie, and he said he agreed, but his friend declined and went home. Now it's important to mention that later on the thirteen year old actually recanted that story as it relates to the involvement of his friend, and he actually said McCormick picked him up and drove him to her apartment.

7:25 I think initially when he was talking to police, he was a little bit scared and it was easier to involve another friend than when you're thirteen. You don't realize the implications of involving other people in your ship, right. So regardless, he goes inside of her house and he said they started kidding around on the living room couch, then they started kissing, and then he said they went into McCormick's bedroom, where he said he sat on the bed and McCormick climbed on top of him and they started having acts. The policeman taking the report also noted that, in an effort to prove this kid had actually been into McCormick's bedroom, he asked the kid to describe it.

8:13 Tell them what it looked like, what did the furniture look like, the wall color, where was the furniture placed, what color sheets were on the bed, those sorts of things, and this kid was able to describe it to a t According to that officer, the student even mentioned that McCormick brought him downstairs after the sacks and that she showed him a video of Kevin Hart on her phone. And later in the investigation, the police did indeed discover that video of Kevin Hart on McCormick's phone, which proved this kid was telling the truth, otherwise he would have no idea what videos that she had on her phone. Now, in addition to all of that, the student allowed police into his phone, where they found some pictures of the teachers exposed breast as well as a bunch of suggestive messages.

9:09 So with all this evidence police they get a warrant to seize McCormick's digital devices. Even before they spoke to her, they already had all this evidence, and that warrant included an iPad, to cell phones, to jump drives, and a laptop. And they head over to her apartment to number one interview her, and number two sees that electronic equipment, so they go over there they start interviewing her, and of course, according to McCormick, this kid's totally full of shit and was mad at her for what she said were quote unknown reasons, and it's important to note that this time she did not know about all this other evidence they had.

9:55 So police sees the electronic equipment and they access McCormick's snapchat account and they find multiple photographs and videos of the victim, along with the photograph of a woman's breast believed to have belonged to McCormick. So they arrest McCormick on a charge of rape, and this is in August of twenty fourteen. She promptly posts a fifty thousand dollars bond later on the same day, and as you would imagine, this is not a big city. Salom Springs, Arkansas is on the smaller side, and people were shocked, absolutely shocked to hear about this. It was also discovered that in addition to the sexual encounter that took place at her apartment, there was an additional sexual encounter that took place with this thirteen year old where McCormick actually picked the student up and brought him to a location where she was building a new house. And that will the premise, let's go see my new house I'm building now. According to the affidavit which I am quoting here, The affidavit says, quote, the student told the officer that they started kissing, and she gave him a blowjob. And then it says which the student described as quote sucking his dick, exactly what

11:26 it says in the affidavit. And another thing that is worth noting her father was also a teacher in the same school district, not at the same school, but the same district. Now, how embarrassing was this for her poor father, who probably knew every teacher in the district. I'm sure probably taught forever. I mean, you just can't imagine the embarrassment not only your husband and your daughter if she's old enough at that time to understand, but your father. So time passes, and initially McCormick was going to go to trial. She was going to fight this thing because she was innocent, right. However, once she discovered all this evidence that the police had. They didn't just have the statement from this kid. They had pictures, they had videos, they had text all these things she thought she had deleted.

12:26 She ends up doing what they all do. She got the pleate and on July thirteenth of twenty fifteen, Mary Faith McCormick, who at this time is thirty three. She pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the first degree, which is a Class A felony, and in Arkansas that was punishable with a prison sentence ranging from six to thirty years. Now, prosecutors agreed to reduce the charge from rape to sexual assault as part of that plea agreement. McCormick told the judge that she had not been coerced into accepting that plea offer, and she also understood that she was waiving her rights to a jury trial and an appeal. The judge accepted that plea agreement as well as her guilty plea, and there were three conditions that McCormick had to abide by until her sentencing. One she must show up for her sentencing. Two she can't commit any other criminal acts, and three she could not have any contact with the victim.

13:35 And the judge warned McCormick that if she violated any of the three conditions, it could avoid the plea agreement altogether and the guilty plea would still stand and then she would be sentenced, likely to the maximum by the judge. So on July thirtieth of twenty fifteen, Mary McCormick appeared in court for her sentencing, and the court read a statement from the boy's mother. These are victim impact statements. According to that statement, it read, there are no words fitting to describe the pain and sorrow my whole family has suffered this past year. We as a family have barely weathered through this storm. Although we see small bits of light at the end of this storm, our hearts are broken and our spirits are weary. The family had to close its business and move to another town because of the harassment and negativity. McCormick's crime brought and the court said the mother felt like she was responsible for leaving the gate open for quote the wolf to attack her young, innocent sheep. The mother said, I have sent my child into the public school system forever six years, not ever believing or thinking that one day his very own teacher, of whom we should trust, would be the wolf that would prey upon him. My son was a four point zero student, an amazing athlete, but was robbed of his childhood. And that was the mother statement. So

15:08 the sentencing occurs and McCormick is sentenced to eight years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections and according to her sentencing, she would have to serve at least two years before she would be eligible for parole. She must abide by a suspended sentence agreement for twelve years after her release from present, and she would be required to register as a sex offender when she is released. She must also complete the prison sex Offender Treatment program after her release from prison, and McCormick was ordered not to have any contact with that team or any witnesses in the case.

15:49 She was also ordered to not have any unsupervised contact with any minors except her biological children. So I say all that to say that you talk about an easy sentence in my opinion, she squerews this thirteen year old thirteen years old twice and is eligible for parole in two years. WTF as expected. Two years later, she indeed goes up for a parole hearing. This was on January twelfth of twenty seventeen, but surprisingly considering my experience covering these cases, it was denied. Then in January of twenty nineteen, she's up for parole again. Now this is less than four years after the incident, and she pens this letter to the court, which I have the actual letter in her hand, running in front of me, and it says I'm writing to see if you would run my court fees and finds cocurrent to the time I observed, I was locked up in Benton County from July thirty until August twenty eighth, twenty fifteen. I have been at McPherson unit from August twenty fifteen to the current time. Since I've been here, I've accomplished many things. I took a week long anger management course in October of twenty fifteen.

17:12 In December of twenty fifteen, I took a Thinking Errors class. I participated in a two month course called Keys to Healthy Relationships for personal Enrichment. I eroned her certificate for this December twenty sixteen. I enrolled in a votech January of twenty sixteen, where I earned fifteen hundred hours in cosmetology. I graduated in May of twenty eighteen. I took and passed the practical and rent exams to earn my state board license. I am now a certified cosmatologist. I've worked in the beauty shop from May twenty eighteen to current and she means the prison beauty shop, where I've earned one thousand and nine internship hours. This is on the job training that has helped me prepare to do hair when I am released. I've also enrolled in SOFT. This is an intense group therapy that meets five days a week with a doctor to discover what red flag situations led to our crime, how to identify and deal with emotions, and give us many tools to cope with our past, present in future. I graduated from SOFT in March of twenty eighteen. Another personal enrichment course that lasted two months that I participated in was Codependent No More. I earned a certificate. This was in June of twenty eighteen. The final course I took was on Communication. This was one month course and I earned a certificate in October of

18:43 twenty eighteen. I'm also currently enrolled in SRT, which stands for Social Responsibility Treatment. We are learning about how loyalty, trust, concerned, honesty, and responsibility will help us be productive members of society. All courses I have taken have been taught by the mental health staff. As you can see, I have used my three and a half years of incarceration to better myself. I hope you will consider running my fines and fees concurrent with my time served due to all the positive things that I have done. This will give me relief of the sixteen hundred dollars of financial obligations so that I may establish my life without such a heavy financial burden.

19:27 Thank you for your time, Mary Faith McCormick. So the parole board they take those letters and they review those and look credit to her that she was making good use of her time behind bars. Another thing the parole board reviews is a transfer eligibility sheet, and it's kind of like a record of how you performed while you were incarcerated. Then just to go over hers, it less the charges of course sexual assault first degree by school personnel, and she had two arges of that that she was in prison for and it says programming while incarcerated, and I just went over those with you, but they're also listed on this form. Then it's this major disciplinaries. So she acted up a little bit early on in prison.

20:16 In three fourteen of twenty seventeen, it said that she got wrote up for refusal to participate in a treatment program and her discipline for that was a commonsary restriction for fifteen days. She had a phone restriction for fifteen days and visitation restriction for fifteen days. And that was really the only write up she had. And they also wrote the judge and asked the Circreit Court judge his thoughts, and it said, this court has no objection to transfer eligibility for Mary McCormick due to the rehab program she is completed while in the prison system. So they take all that information and they make a decision. You guessed it.

21:04 In January of twenty nineteen, she gets released from prison after serving less than four years of that eight year sentence. All right, so I'm going to tell you another bad teacher story today. It's a multiple edition of bad teachers. And every now and then I run into cases involving actually multiple teachers with students at the same school, and occasionally they're even involved with students together or they team up to sleep with students. And I'm going to tell you about the case of Ashley Burkett. In April Watson and they taught at Jay High School in Santa Rosa County, Florida.

21:54 So Ashley Burkett, she was a thirty two year old. She taught reading in space education students at Jay High School. April Watson taught at the same school. She was thirty three years old, and she taught math and was also the JV cheerleading coach. And both of these ladies had two children themselves. So in July of two thousand and nine, an investigation began after an anonymous letter sent to the Santa Rosa County School District alleged a sexual relationship between the two teachers and three then seventeen year old boys.

22:35 Now the males were not direct students of the teachers, but they did attend Jay High School, and of course school officials they get this letter and they send it directly to the Santa Rosa Sheriff's office and they say, we need this investigated, and an investigation into the incident then started. So the first thing the police do, they interview the seven teen year olds, and the seventeen year olds told investigators that they had sex with the teachers between July and October of two thousand and seven, which was a couple of years before this was reported. So at the time that these students were interviewed, they were nineteen almost twenty years old. Now, two of the boys said they had sex with April Watson at her house.

23:26 And they also said that they had sex with April Watson at Ashley Burkett's house. So Watson was sleeping with two of these students. The third student said he had sex with Burkett at both her house and at Ashley Watson's house. Now, it didn't specify if the sex took place at the same time at each one of these ladies' houses. For whatever reason, it didn't specify that, So I'll leave that up to you to wonder. But certainly these two teachers were very close friends when they're having sex at each other's house with students. Right now, it's important to note that the age of consent in Florida is eighteen years old, with the only exception to that being if the sexual relationship falls under what is known as the Romeo and Juliet Law in Florida. And let me tell you what that is. That's a statue that protects teenagers from harsh penalties for consensual sexual relationships with other teenagers. The law applies when the age gap between the two people is no more than four years and the younger person is at least fourteen years old. So if you're a senior in high school, you just turned eighteen.

24:43 Your girlfriend is a freshman and she's fourteen. You can get in some trouble, but you don't have to register as a sex offender for the rest of your life for example. So moving on. On August sixth of two thousand and nine, Burquette and Watson both charged with having sex with underage students in two thousand and seven, and they turned themselves in to authorities. Now, of course, police interview them and during that interview they did both admit to the sexual activity and they were both subsequently arrested. Ashley Burkette was arrested in charge with three counts of sexual assault with victims sixteen to seventeen years old. Apral Watson also arrested same thing, three counts of sexual assault with victims sixteen to seventeen years old. And it shocked even some students at the school when this came out.

25:38 As a matter of fact, one was interviewed. His name was Max Nesati and he was eighteen who was a recent graduate of Jay High School, and he said the two young blonde teachers were friends. He said they both helped with cheerleading teams and he even said he recalled seeing them jogging together after school. He went on to say, miss Watson and she was young and attractive. In Miss Burkette, she was also pretty attractive. Quote. I mean, they were like friendly with the students. But I would have never imagined anything like this, So unlike some of the other cases that we covered, this was not out there amongst the students. Now, Burkett and Watson, they were doing court in early December of two thousand and nine, but requests for continuances and things like that were approved by the judge.

26:28 This is common in these types of cases, and of course that delayed their next court appearance until late January twenty ten. Now, initially, during their arraignment they both pleaded not guilty and they got out on bail right pending that trial. So on January of twenty ten, Burkett and Watson they do a reversal and they plead no contest to three counts of unlawful sexual activity with certain minors. After yet another plea deal in these bad teacher cases that I cover. So the sentencing gets scheduled for April fourteenth of twenty ten, and at that time, the state attorney, his name was Bill Eddens. He said under the Florida Senenson guidelines. The lowest permissible sentence for these ladies is thirty three months, so a little over two years. And then finally they get to the sentencing stage, and this was on April sixteenth of twenty ten, and we're both sentenced to fifteen months in state prison and five years probation, which included eighteen months of community service. And there was a stipulation saying the teachers will be required to register as sex offenders upon release. Now, after the sentencing, several people involved in this case, they spoke out. Assistant District Attorney Christy Hankins mentioned asking the judge to order that

27:58 the teachers spent and at least five years in prison. Hankins said, the idea that they were teachers was absolutely revolting. And this is two thousand and nine. It was out there, but not out there like it is today. I mean, today you can't pick up a paper. It's so sad, and it's why I do this podcast. You can't pick up shit without seeing these teachers screwing all these students. But back then it wasn't as talked about. Hankin said, it's the adult's responsibility to make the right decision, not the seventeen year old boys. Let's be clear, there was no remorse until they were caught. Hankins also addressed what she said was a gender disparity when it comes to cases in which adults are accused of having sex with children. Quote, if this was a twenty nine and thirty year old male teacher who had sex with a female student, it would be an uproar and an outrage and everybody would be out to get them. Period. And this is a female prosecute saying this, and it's so true. That's why I focus on the females so hard in these episodes.

29:06 Certainly it's a problem on both sides, but there is a disparity there, and I hope that you're realizing that as we go along, if you didn't already, And it's why it's so important to share these episodes. The defense attorneys in this case, for both ladies, they also spoke out and they said the boys in the case said during depositions that they didn't think their teachers should spend time in prison. One of the attorneys said, I don't think they should go to jail because it's one hundred percent voluntary on both sides, what the hell. Both attorneys called for a reduced sentence that included no jail time, and Watson's attorney said everyone is subject to human frailty.

29:48 She made a very serious mistake that will follow her the rest of her life. ILL agree with that. He went on to say, the former teachers were immediately remorseful with investigators, which proved to be in the their favor. Also in their favor were that the teens were willing participants. So these two bad teachers I just told you about, they did indeed serve fifteen months, and on May ninth of two thy eleven, they were both released, and they had some stipulations. One of them they'll forever be on the sex offender registry. And after five years of post incarceration, this was in twenty sixteen, they both completed probation and they were released off of their probation. However, neither will ever be allowed in the teaching profession again. So one of those cases, y'all where these teachers were actually in cahoots together sleeping with these students at each other's houses, totally bizarre, and that is a rap for this episode of Bad Teachers. Thank you again, to all my Patreon supporters.

31:10 What don't exists without you, none of this that we do. You make this show roll, and until next time for exposed scandalous files of the elite, I'm your host, Jim Chapman. Much love,