33 Year Old Texas School Counselor Turns Herself in For Having Sex With 17 Year Old

A North Texas school counselor turned herself into authorities Thursday after allegations surfaced that she had a sexual relationship with a ninth-grade student for roughly a year.

During that time, she told the boy’s sister she would leave her husband for him. According to police, the inappropriate tryst ended abruptly when the teenager’s mother caught them naked in his bed. Shannon Hathaway, 33, was a school counselor at Harwood Junior High in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford (HEB) Independent School District until Wednesday when she resigned from her job. Bedford police said that Hathaway’s attorney arranged for her to surrender to authorities at the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department. There they charged her with the offense of having an improper relationship between an educator and student. Curiously, she smiled widely in her mugshot released by the county jail. Hathaway’s arrest followed a month-long investigation conducted by the Bedford Police Department. Officers said they first learned about the school counselor’s concerning behavior on May 9. However, Hathaway’s sexual relationship with the teenager actually happened a year ago, during the 2016-17 school year, when the student was 17-years-old and in ninth grade at Harwood. HEB ISD administrators immediately placed Hathaway on paid administrative leave while Bedford police investigated the allegations. The school district said it cooperated fully with local law enforcement, who also questioned the male victim about his relationship with the counselor. The teenager told detectives he had sex with Hathaway two or three times at her home and about eight times at his family’s residence. He described the encounters as “consensual,” according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The teenager also said that Hathaway’s husband was away during the times the two had sex at her home. (Read more)

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