Teacher in jail after allegedly stalking girl
A Grand Coulee middle-school teacher and reserve police officer was in jail Monday on a charge of stalking a 15-year-old girl while awaiting trial on charges that he raped her.
Okanogan County Superior Court Commissioner Bud Gardner set bail at $25,000 on the stalking charge, but revoked 50-year-old Vernon E. Heizer’s bail on the original charges.
Heizer had been free on $50,000 bail pending trial Dec. 11 on two counts of third-degree child rape, one count of third-degree child molestation and communication with a minor for immoral purposes.
The charges involve a girl who was 14 when Heizer allegedly initiated a sexual relationship with her that lasted the better part of a year.
Heizer was charged with stalking a witness, in violation of a protection order, on Friday, and Okanogan County sheriff’s deputies arrested him Saturday at his home in Nespelem, Wash.
Sheriff Frank Rogers said several witnesses complained that Heizer had been driving by the girl’s home and school since mid-August when she might be coming or going, and that Heizer had been seen in a vehicle parked near her home.
Rogers said Heizer has been dismissed as a Grand Coulee reserve police officer. Heizer’s employment status with the Grand Coulee Dam School District was not immediately available.
According to court documents, Heizer told sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Worden that he’d had a close relationship with the girl since she was in a sixth-grade class he taught. Worden said Heizer denied having sex with the girl as she claimed, or having an affair with her mother, as his wife said he had told her.
Sheriff’s officers began investigating Heizer in June when his estranged wife turned over a cell phone, marked “broken,” and other items she found in a box after he moved out. Court documents say the phone’s contact list had only one entry: Heizer’s cell number under the heading “VIP.”
That phone and Heizer’s showed he exchanged numerous phone calls and text messages with the girl, Worden reported. A second cell phone Heizer allegedly gave the girl was obtained from her mother.
According to court documents, the girl said she and Heizer used their cell phones to exchange nude photographs of themselves as well as “inappropriate” text messages.
Documents say the girl told sheriff’s Detective Kreg Sloan in July, shortly before Heizer was charged, that she initially had confided in Heizer and sought his advice. She said their conversations led to “hand touches” and eventually sex about once a month, Sloan reported.
The sexual relationship allegedly began last October or November and continued at least until July 2. Sloan reported that the girl told him Heizer made her feel their relationship was “right and good.” She said she didn’t think he would hurt her because he was a husband, a police officer, a teacher and a father.
The alleged victim said she would sneak out of her house at night and meet Heizer at the end of her driveway. Then they would drive up a hill overlooking the house and talk or have sex in his white Ford pickup, according to court documents.