Victim's Mom on Why Killer Needs to Die
Weird Teacher Watch: Kevin Ricks Arrested After More Than 30 Years Of Abusing Students On Various Continents
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 9:00 am
 |
Kevin Ricks had been working as an English teacher at Osbourn High School in Manassas, Virginia for a couple of years when the police were first alerted to some suspicious behavior.
In 2008, the mother of a young man contacted police when Ricks attempted to meet her son in person after exchanging some rather alarming messages with him through Facebook. Apparently, the boy was friends with another kid whom Ricks was tutoring in a nearby county.
Police weren't able to rack up enough evidence against Ricks to arrest him in that case, but they kept a close eye on him, and sure enough, the 49-year-old teacher struck again.
In February, Ricks was arrested while leaving school. Apparently, he'd sexually assaulted a 16-year-old former male student. He was charged with carnal knowledge, aggravated sexual assault, and two counts of indecent liberties with a minor.
But that was just the beginning of what folks discovered about Ricks.
After a four month investigation, three reporters at the Washington Post revealed that Ricks had a long, dark history of attacking his students.
Apparently, Ricks was a well-regarded teacher at Osbourn -- a lover of Walt Whitman with a passion for writing and photography, he was often spotted walking the halls of the school clutching a leather-bound journal.
Inside that journal, however, was the story of another man -- a sexual predator who kept a homemade library of videos and photographs documenting his long history as a pedophile, skilled at handpicking the perfect victims. He even kept mementos -- or trophies -- from his conquests, from sex toys and cum rags to trimmings of his victims' hair.
Since 1978, Ricks has worked as a teacher, tutor, a foreign exchange host, and even a camp counselor, leaving a trail of victims in his wake.
While many of his former employers knew or suspected Ricks of inappropriate behavior with students, they merely let him go, and never alerted his new employers.
The Washington Post interviewed six of his victims or their families, spanning the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Most of the stories were the same: Ricks endeared himself to his victims and their families with generous gifts, attention, and, eventually, enough alcohol to stock a bar.
Ricks always stuck to the same MO: he got the boys incredible drunk, usually on Tequila, and then sexually assaulted them in front a camera, with which he put together his library of child pornography.
Investigators in both Virginia and Maryland say they have turned up a shocking heap of evidence and are continuing to scour his computer, video library, and journal for more.
For the moment, police have only charged him with the February attack, but claim that more charges may be coming soon.
More links from around the web!
