Missouri student teacher jailed for sending nudes to 13-year-old boys and repeatedly begging one of them for sex
LAMAR, MISSOURI: A former student teacher from Lamar, Missouri, has been given four years behind bars for sending nudes to three 13-year-old boys and asking one of them repeatedly to have sex with her. The sentencing on Thursday, October 22, came after Emily L. Edson pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual misconduct with a child and one count of promoting child pornography in Vernon County Circuit Court.
The deeds of the 39-year-old came to light after the mother of one of the three male students whom Edson had been sending inappropriate messages filed a complaint with police on May 20, 2017. An investigation was launched and after that, the student teacher was charged with having a nude photo of two students on her phone in June that year. Rusty Rives, police chief of the Lamar Police Department at the time of the investigation, said due to the mother’s complaint, they also found two other male boys of eight grade at the Children's Center in Nevada, Missouri, where Edson had been teaching.
After securing a search warrant, Edson's cell phone was seized by the authorities on May 26, 2017. They also interviewed her that day but she got arrested a few days later, on June 4, 2017. Eventually, the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force also became part of the investigation with Lamar police and after getting another search warrant three days after Edson's arrest, cops took her computer, electronic tablet, and CDs in their custody.
In February 2019, new charges on Edson were filed by Barton County Prosecutor Mike Smalley after it was found she sent naked pictures of herself to three teenagers of the school she was working as a teacher. An affidavit also stated that the woman repeatedly asked for sex from one of the boys and talked with him in a sexual manner. Initially, Edson faced a count of sexual enticement of a child in addition to the three counts of sexual misconduct and two counts of possession of child pornography. But as part of a plea deal, the enticement count and one count of possession of child pornography were dropped by the Barton County prosecutor's office. The prosecutor's office also amended the second count to promoting child pornography.
In another incident, a teacher from Florida had a sexual encounter with a minor student while his mother slept beside them on a couch. Kristen O’Brien reportedly told the student’s mother that she had an “inappropriate emotional relationship” with her son. The teacher was arrested on October 16 and has been charged with lewd and lascivious battery sex act on a child between 12 and 16 years old.
Reports stated that the 31-year-old suspect’s alleged criminal activity came to light after the boy’s mother informed the police. The mother reportedly saw messages between the teacher and her son while checking his phone. She soon contacted the teacher and asked her to meet and during the meeting, O’Brien said to the mother that she had feelings for her son, whom she gave three options after confessing to him. According to the arrest report, the first option by the accused was that the student would completely forget that she told something like that to him, second, they could stop any kind of communication between them, and the third was to act on the feeling and not worry about the consequences.