Boy-Crazy Teacher Meredith Powell Raped Tacoma Teenagers, Police Say

Posted on | February 8, 2014 | 69 Comments

A 24-year-old Lincoln High School math teacher was charged Thursday with “two counts of third-degree child rape and communication with a minor for immoral purposes via electronic communication,” and on Friday she pleaded not guilty:

Meredith Powell performed oral sex on a 15-year-old student in her Tacoma classroom last month and sent him nude photos of herself taking a bath using the application Snapchat.
Documents said she also admitted to exchanging inappropriate texts with and having sexual contact with a second student, 16, during a Jan. 17 assembly in which they stayed behind and met in her classroom.
A third student, age 17, who was in her class during a prior year said he and Powell exchanged sexual text messages but did not have sexual contact.

According to an arrest affidavit, however, Meredith Powell admitted her crimes to Tacoma Police detectives:

On February 6, 2014, detective interviewed the victims. [He] disclosed the following: The day of the MLK assembly [Jan. 17, the boy] went to the defendant’s classroom. They kissed, he touched her breasts, and she touched his chest under his shirt. [The boy] then digitally penetrated her vagina. On the day of the assembly, [the boy] sent her a text asking if she wanted to stay behind and she agreed to.
During his interview, [a second boy] disclosed the following: The defendant is his teacher. They sent texts to each other and she sent him pictures of her naked in a bathtub. [The second boy] and the defendant kissed a few days after the MLK Day assembly when he went to her classroom and the door was locked. The defendant kissed [the second boy] and he touched her buttocks and breasts. The defendant touched [the second boy]’s chest under his shirt and performed oral sex on him. [The second boy] digitally penetrated the defendant. . . .
Detectives re-contacted the defendant and advised of her Miranda rights which she waived. She admitted the following: She preformed oral sex on [one of the boys] and her classroom door was possibly locked. He put his mouth on her breast and digitally penetrated her vagina. She told him to stop. She sent him a snapchat pictures. She thought they were of her in the bathtub and one of her in bed in the dark. The defendant admitted [one of the boys] put his mouth on her breast and digitally penetrated her vagina. They began texting after New Year’s Eve and it became inappropriate. She touched [one of the boy]’s penis over his clothes and he put his finger into her vagina. She knew her actions were wrong … When asked what she would say to the students’ parents, she said she would apologize.

“She said she would apologize”? Translation: “Hey, I’m totally sorry I got caught playing with your teenage son’s boner and stuff.”

Having recently written several items (e.g., “She Craved the Taste of Boy Flesh,” Jan. 12, and “Police: Ex-Teacher Tonya Drueppel, 33, Had Sex With 13-Year-Old ‘Girlfriend’,” Jan. 30) about sex-crime cases involving female teacher, I notice that this latest case in Tacoma is getting more media coverage than most, with reports at the Daily Mail, Daily Caller and NY Daily News. This can be explained simply: (a) the accused teacher is a skinny young blonde with a nice smile, (b) she seems to have had a habit of posting selfies on Facebook and Pinterest, providing lots of photo potential, and (c) the affidavit offers lurid details.

Dan Riehl comments on Miss Powell’s alleged crimes:

“There has to be some psychological stuff going on.
She could have just gone to a bar and found some
age appropriate men if all she wanted was some casual sex.”

We could speculate on what kind of “psychological stuff” Meredith Powell had “going on,” but that doesn’t explain what would seem to be a trend of these sex-crazed perverts, most of whom are not as photogenic as Meredith Powell. If more and more female teachers are having sex with teenage boys, you can’t really explain any one particular case except in the context of that trend.

However, let me make a simple observation: It is what it is.

When someone is apprehended in deviant behavior, the “why”/”how” questions — “How did they get so messed-up in the head?” — arouse our curiosity. But without a detailed personal history and psychological profile of the perpetrator, we can’t really answer those questions. The simplest explanation is that they made their personal choices and did what they wanted to do. If a woman is accused of giving a teenage boy a blow job, well, maybe she likes giving blow jobs to teenage boys.

Just throwing that out there as a possibility.

Finally, a friend on Twitter points out that Lincoln High is an urban school with lots of diversity: The students body is 27% white, 23% black, 23% Hispanic and 16% Asian, so maybe Miss Powell got kind of carried away with her celebration of multiculturalism.

Category: Crime, Education, Sex, Washington State

Comments

69 Responses to “Boy-Crazy Teacher Meredith Powell Raped Tacoma Teenagers, Police Say”

M. Thompson
February 8th, 2014 @ 4:12 pm

Deeply disturbed gets them exactly.
Mm
February 8th, 2014 @ 4:15 pm

I don’t care “why.”. Keep the pervs away from the kids.
The End of Snow? | Regular Right Guy
February 8th, 2014 @ 4:15 pm

[…] Boy-Crazy Teacher Meredith Powell Raped Tacoma Teenagers, Police Say […]
Dana
February 8th, 2014 @ 6:00 pm

Well, you’re right about one thing: she sure is cute!

She has a college degree, which should mean that she’s not an utter moron, and after all of these stories — and, I would assume, other teachers talking about past arrests in the teachers’ lounge — she had to know that what she was doing was a felony, which could put her in jail for years and ruin her life.

Our sex drive is pretty strong, which explains why so many people do stupid, stupid things; most married people wind up committing adultery at some point, and there’s never any logical reason for it. It’s possible that she was just caught up in the moment, horny, and not thinking straight, which might be the definition of stupidity, but isn’t always the definition of mental illness.

Perhaps twenty years in prison will help her thought processes.
RKae
February 8th, 2014 @ 6:22 pm

Like everything else in America: ubiquity = acceptance.
They’ll just keep doing it until a generation down the line normalizes it.
Art Deco
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:18 pm

They skipped a school assembly for this tryst, so there were not any productivity losses. The school assembly was for Martin Luther King Day, which is part of our menu of public holidays because Coretta King, whatever else she failed to accomplish over the 28 years she ran the King Center, knew how to push Ronald Reagan’s ‘yes, dear’ button. Given her late husband’s rather gantryish history (of which the FBI sweetly informed her by playing a surreptitious recording to her over the phone), you cannot say an illicit tryst is not in keeping with the day.

In New York, for a woman of 24 to fellate a youth of 15 is a class E felony, for which the standard sentence is imprisonment for an indeterminate period which may be set at 1 to 3 years or 16 months to 4 years. There are options to substitute a determinate sentence of up to a year and I think there are probation options. Interesting to know if Washington state is more severe.
RKae
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:20 pm

This isn’t sex drive. It’s a need for a lopsided power dynamic. She could get sex anywhere, but it wouldn’t have the “fun” of being forbidden, and it wouldn’t have the “fun” of her being the boss.
The need to do wrong is probably more overpowering than any sex drive (particularly in a narcissistic, affluent culture with a short attention span and an easy ability to become desensitized to last week’s thrill). And like every other desire, you need to conquer it or it destroys you.
Art Deco
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:20 pm

She looks ordinary enough in most of these pictures. Some of RSM previous posts were of very disturbing and unattractive women.
Art Deco
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:23 pm

Maybe. Reading fragments of Ryan Loskarn’s suicide note made me wonder if this is not some role-playing game for these women. She did work for a time at the high school from which she graduated. Does she, just for the moment, conceive of herself as their peer? Is this something she wanted to do nine years ago to someone in particular, but the opportunity did not present itself?
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:30 pm

Mary Kay L. got off easy…
RKae
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:33 pm

Or is “I feel like one of their peers” an inner defense mechanism? Yeah, she wanted to do it 9 years ago, but that would have meant doing it with an equal.
Unix-Jedi
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:34 pm

She has a college degree, which should mean that she’s not an utter moron

Presumably in Education (of some variation).

20 years ago, I was making fun of a friend for her pride at her 4.0 in Early Education. “Yeah, but that’s at best a 2.6 in any real degree.” She got furious.

About a year later, she knocked on my door, shaken, and came in and apologized. She’d changed her major to Biochem – and had just had her first Chem 101 and Bio 101 tests on the same day. She was _shocked_ at the difference. She had been working _hard_ before, and just didn’t grasp how easy the Ed. department was.

That was 20 years ago. It’s gotten worse since then.

So no, a Ed degree doesn’t tell you anything. I’ve got Stories.
Art Deco
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:40 pm

No, she did 7 years. He plea bargain was vacated because she was arrested canoodling with her boy toy in a parked car while on parole.

Now, that pair make a freak show.
WarEagle82
February 8th, 2014 @ 7:49 pm

So it is a good thing that progressives are engaging in perversion in highly diverse areas?

I mean, would one want to limit perversion to a single ethnic group?

I mean, shouldn’t all ethnic groups be able to experience this perversion according to some quota that closely approximates their representation in the general population?

Are progressives just doing this because they worry that dead white straight males would simply be racist in their selection of juveniles, if dead white straight males did this kind of thing?

Is this whole thing just an another selfless examples of progressives fighting potential racism perpetrated by the oppressive hetero-normative patriarchy?

And is “hetero-normative” one word or two words or hyphenated?
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 8th, 2014 @ 8:27 pm

That was a double entendre. You are absolutely right, but MKL was so bat shit crazy she screwed up a very light sentence.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 8th, 2014 @ 8:30 pm

I am not sure “most” married couples commit adultery (although many do). I agree that sex drive can make us do weird things.

But this is really not sex but something else. It is tied into sexual issues, but it is almost a compulsion to destroy one’s life (and also completely oblivious to the harm to the kids being used in the process). It is beyond forbidden fruit, it is something darker than that.
Shawny
February 8th, 2014 @ 8:32 pm

Must be something in the water here in WA. I remember back in the late 60’s a new cute female teacher started at our high school. In the age of mini skirts hers were WAY shorter. When she crossed her legs you could see into the next zip code. She blatantly flirted with the male students, especially the jocks. But back in the day I guess it was more about school cover up without calling attention to the crime when it was brought to the schools attention. One day she was just gone without explanation and not much later she was married to one of the jocks she had been hanging out with. Teaching obviously wasn’t her biggest priority. There will always be temptation and perversion and all manner of inappropriate behavior, but it sure as hell doesn’t belong in our schools around our kids.
Zohydro
February 8th, 2014 @ 8:34 pm

She was recently in some minor trouble again…

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/latestnews/1865978-8/ex-teacher-mary-kay-letourneau-back-in-court
Zohydro
February 8th, 2014 @ 8:39 pm

+1 for “canoodling”…
Zohydro
February 8th, 2014 @ 8:51 pm

We had one of those in my high school too—late ’70’s…
mikegiles
February 8th, 2014 @ 8:56 pm

That’s the problem with giving 15 year old blow jobs – they haven’t yet learned to keep their mouth’s shut, about a good thing.
bioya1
February 8th, 2014 @ 9:56 pm

Why wasn’t she my teacher when I was 15?
Of course these women should know that you cannot keep a teenage boy’s mouth shut. Its a really stupid thing to do.
Mm
February 8th, 2014 @ 10:17 pm

Something similar happened when I was in school, only in reverse. The Bio and chem majors who were flunking out switched to ECE.
Mm
February 8th, 2014 @ 10:19 pm

As I’ve said before, if only she were allowed to marry, none of this would have happened….
Anon Imus
February 8th, 2014 @ 10:26 pm

The problem here is not the boy’s mouths…
rmnixondeceased
February 8th, 2014 @ 10:54 pm

Dark and evil. This is just how Satan stalks among us and uses us to do his bidding. There are ways to return to the right path, the long and winding road full of pitfalls and difficulties. But the way is hard and the turns are easy to miss, all the while Satan is tempting with a wide paved road that is straight and downhill. As you view the paths side by side the snake whispers that the way is too hard and besides you are already condemned … He is called the Father of Lies for a very good reason …
Julie Pascal
February 8th, 2014 @ 11:30 pm

LOL
Becca Lower
February 8th, 2014 @ 11:49 pm

Just horrific.
Oh, a tiny typo, Stacy: 5th paragraph: ‘She admitted the following: She pERformed….’ (though it’s in a blockquote, so may be their error).
Becca Lower
February 9th, 2014 @ 12:15 am

Agreed, EBL. There could be a personality disorder in play. Also, when did teachers start wearing jeans and teeshirts? The informality that implies can’t help professionals maintain respect and authority in the classroom.
K-Bob
February 9th, 2014 @ 12:35 am

I don’t think we can take the obsession with two things out of the picture, though.
1) “youth” culture. The plastic surgery, peels and other things, combined with the war on body hair has gotten people obsessed with sexualizing pre-pubescence.
2) “hookup” culture. The abolishment of committment has caused a massive spike in STDs. So banging underage ~~victims~~partners is perceived as safer, from an STD standpoint.

Of course, you still need to factor in the power dynamic thing. Some people crave the danger, but have to have that feeling of being “the one in control” in order to slip the surly bonds of sanity.

(And that feeling of control makes these abusers think their ~~victims~~partners would never submit to the usual forensic examinations.)
RKae
February 9th, 2014 @ 4:49 am

Yup. And in our current culture, if a person is in a situation to “do” someone, you’re “sick in the head” if you turn it down. Self-control is viewed as insane. So how are people suddenly supposed to show proper judgment when the situation is totally inappropriate? Where is that good judgment suddenly going to come from if it’s never required anywhere else in life?
RKae
February 9th, 2014 @ 4:51 am

I contend that some of the dumbest people in our society are designing computers. I just don’t think education equals smarts AT ALL.
Art Deco
February 9th, 2014 @ 8:32 am

As recently as 1962 years ago, this was referred to as one of the sins ‘that cry out to heaven for vengeance’.

John Derbyshire had a story of discussing the matter with a Depression baby who told him “I suggested it to the wife once; she said ‘you want me to put what? where? What have you been reading??’ ”

Our sensibilities used to be more refined.
Zohydro
February 9th, 2014 @ 11:20 am

Why the same did not happen to St Kate will always baffle me…
Roger Cotton
February 9th, 2014 @ 3:40 pm

TV Shows that use 30 year old actors to depict teenagers are contributing to the sexualization of youth.
Bob Belvedere
February 9th, 2014 @ 5:55 pm

Sadly, informality is the rule everywhere these days. Have you been to a wake lately – disgusting.

It seems to me this is just another case of the Abnormal [informality in dress] replacing the Normal [dressing properly for the occasion].
Bob Belvedere
February 9th, 2014 @ 6:00 pm

I have been searching my Internet notes for an article I once read about the history of fellatio and it shows how the act only achieved popularity in the mid-20th Century, but I am unable to find it [I have a dim recall that I discovered the article via Stacy, so maybe he knows where to find it].
Unix-Jedi
February 9th, 2014 @ 7:25 pm

Errr. I didn’t say it did.

However, the Education Education system is horrible . My sophomore year of undergrad was much harder than the Masters in Education a gf once got while living with me.

And that wasn’t the hard year.
bflat879
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:27 pm

You really have to wonder how much of this is, “If I only knew then, what I know now…..”
strawberrysboy
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:30 pm

How, how did she ever get caught? I mean, teenage boys are so discreet about sex.
Billy___Bob
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:33 pm

Can we get a national count of female teachers who have sexually assaulted their students versus the number of priests?
willbest
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:38 pm

Public schools are a lot better at hiding it.
willbest
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:40 pm

Yeah child labor laws suck. Hollywood should totally be allowed to put real teens on an 8-week 16-hr a day work schedule twice a year
Chemman01
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:51 pm

I’ve thought this for years. We have trained people in the culture to just do what feels good. Now, when they do it we punish them.
Chemman01
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:54 pm

Graduate ED School is about the equivalent of middle school in difficulty.
Chemman01
February 9th, 2014 @ 10:57 pm

It started happening in the 80’s
Donald Sensing
February 9th, 2014 @ 11:03 pm

It’s worse than you think (maybe). I hold a M.Div from Vanderbilt; it was an 84-hour Master degree. At the same school you could get a both a Master and a Ph.D. in Education for fewer hours than that.
mstockinger
February 9th, 2014 @ 11:05 pm

A little off-topic, but perhaps not. “Most married people wind up committing adultery at some point” is largely a matter of what you experience in your personal milieu. In my circles, most married people DO NOT commit adultery. Undoubtedly this female teacher has her own cultural norms…
Grizzly
February 9th, 2014 @ 11:22 pm

She’s not a 9, but she’s certainly cute enough to get a relatively successful, high-quality man. She’s definitely one of those types of women who don’t belong anyplace but the kitchen and the supermarket.
Guest
February 9th, 2014 @ 11:23 pm

A few observations; In a world where Woody Allen gets a pass, the arbitrary social applications of age appropriate relationships becomes blurred in the mind of adolescents and adults with the maturity level of adolescents, and a none-existent ethical boudaries.

My observations from teaching;

This sort of trouble used to be confined to cute, young coaches with their legions of senior girl fangirls, but the problem has spread from several possible reasons.

1.Many young teachers fresh out of college don’t have a strong sense of professional barriers from kids 4-6 years younger than themselves. People used to take their professional barrier with a sense of serious pride. Apparently fear of losing their license has more influence.

2. Younger teachers dressing the way they do in college. I pulled a student teacher over one day and explained: these are 15 year old hormonally-driven boys. You have to choose whether you want them focusing on your breasts or focusing on what you wish them to learn. This also pertains to body language in the classroom. It’s a general lack of common sense that most tend to regain after encountering the expected reactions from high school boys. People wishing to be viewed as real teachers change their appearance to be professional, not sexual
3. Movies and the entertainment industry have popularized and romantized the idea of faculty-student romance/sexual relationships. You could broadened that cultural influence to apply to the general social influence on the idea of young-older relationships. It’s now considered “cool” where our generation views it as “eww” and throw the perv in jail Prime example: Woody Allen apologists and fan fiction writers.
4. Now the entertainment industry has created a massive problem for teachers in general. The frequent introduction of the idea of teacher-student romances to teens has normalized the concept for high school students over the last decade. (which means when they first encountered movies/tv on the topic in high school- years later they show up as teachers. In the meantime, the “bag a teacher” contest has become an weird fad among many students. That old TIMF vote morphed into an unpleasant level of aggression among teens, and not confined to the males. I’ve witnessed kids stalking innocent teachers. One poor guy finally called the parents of an insane 15 year old who repeatedly attemped to corner him in his classroom. Luckly for him, they believed him and put a stop to it. Teachers have been grabbed, gropped, stalked at their cars and homes. In most cases teachers deal with this craziness by verbally slapping down and contacting the school counselor. But occasion it gets ugly even when teachers report aggressive behavior. Reporting a student aggression can backfire on teachers without a witness to collaborate what happened. Administrators don’t want to intervene. So most teachers exercise extreme care on allowing students in classrooms after hours and so forth. In the end we are responsible for preventing potential situations from emerging. But an inexperienced and immature teacher may not be as adept in avoiding problem situations. This problem may sound crazy, and I certainly found it shocking, but the world has changed.