Former WV Principal Accused Of Being A Pedophile And Child Molester? by Jack Swint
“He knew that I knew what he was doing to those boys. He always had young male foreign exchange student in his home too. He constantly had groups of boys with him at all times. I knew he was an evil man"….Former Matewan School Counselor, Hester Keatley
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Sometimes A Story Has To Be Told Again And Again (First published in November 2008)
In June 1996, then forty-eight year old Thomas Scott King (pictured above with President Obama) was arrested after spending the night in a Charleston WV motel with a 17-year old boy. At the time, Mr. King was the principal at Valley High school in Smithers, WV. The teenager was one of his students…..and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Kings own little brother has come forward with a deep dark secret of his own…“My older brother, Scott, began raping and sodomizing me when I was 5-years old.”
Signs of a Pedophile
On the surface, 63 year old Thomas Scott King has traveled the world and made friends with dignitaries and other high ranking officials while working for the Peace Corps. In the 1970’s, he traveled to Africa where he taught English. His role as a teacher and principal in at least three WV high schools has opened other doors to prominent state politicians like WV Supreme Court Judge Margaret Workman, who has had him on her “Facebook” list of friends.
Then there is the side of him that only a few choice people know about. When Thomas Scott King was principal at Valley High School in Fayette County, he plead guilty in Magistrate Court for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The charges and subsequent plea deal in Fayette County stemmed from an incident that began at a Charleston motel in June, 1996. Both King and the student admitted to State Police of spending at least one night together. King claimed he drove the youth from Smithers, WV, to Charleston in order to personally console the boy who police were searching for after his parents reported him missing.
Cops finally caught up with the pair when they spotted the boy driving the principal’s car back in Fayette County 2 days after he was reported missing. King also admitted he allowed the boy to drive his car even though the teen had no license. In fact, Fayette prosecutors could only charge King with contributing to the delinquency of a minor for driving the car because the motel was in Kanawha County.
But, they never followed up with Charleston authorities to go after King for taking the boy to a motel in that jurisdiction.
In an August 7th, 1996 Charleston Gazette and Daily Mail newspaper article; than Assistant Fayette County Prosecutor, Tom Steele, said he did not know the specific details of the trip to the motel and could not investigate because it was outside his jurisdiction. The newspaper articles described how King admitted they spent the night at the motel together and King’s resignation as principal. There was one mandatory condition to the “no contest” plea agreement. King had to resign as both principal of Valley High School and the WV Board of Education.
Did prosecutors and law enforcement know that this man showed signs of being a sexual predator? Who knows? Fayette County prosecutors either forgot or did not care to follow up with Kanawha County authorities on the overnight motel stay.
Today, that former juvenile is approximately 33 and is allegedly still dealing with problems related to those events. A Fayette County Magistrate clerk told this author that all records before 1997 have been “purged” so no records exist of the arrest and/or conviction. According to the two newspaper articles, Scott King was merely fined $50 plus $67 in court costs.
Years of Sexual Attacks
Walter “Casey” King (pictured to the left) and his brother Scott, grew up in the Mayberry, WV area in McDowell County. His older brother was born on July 31, 1948, making him approximately 19-years old at the time of the first attack. Casey now recalls how his sibling made it appear as a game of “hide and go seek” by persuading him to belly crawl up under his bed just to have Scott discover him and pull him out by his feet. That is when the assaults would take place. “I remember how big his hands felt on my legs.” He would also tell me, “Play with it,” talking about his brother’s penis.
The alleged assaults took place until he was seven-years old, which is when his brother left home for Africa. But, one last incident occurred when Casey was 15. In that attack, the younger brother managed to stop Scott from assaulting him as his older brother tried to take Casey’s clothes off of him. As he recalls, “Scott was actually my WV History teacher in the 8th grade and then Ethnic studies in the 9th grade” at former Elkhorn Jr. High in McDowell County.”
Memories of the sexual assaults haunt him some days more than others. Everything all came to a head several months ago when Casey said “just out of the blue,” Scott called him on the phone just to tell him that he needed to call his father. “There was something in the tone of his voice” that brought all of the emotions flowing out of Casey’s deepest subconscious.” From that moment, I knew what all he had done to me.” In fact, Casey says he called his brother back a few days later and left him a simple voice mail message.
“You need to know that I remember everything you did to me….you have one week to turn yourself in to the authorities.”
Casey said he can forgive his brother for everything he did to him, but, he has to be stopped. “He took away my identity, my innocence, and I’ve had nightmares for years about it all.” He says he also felt guilty that it was somehow his fault. Growing up, he became an alcoholic, divorced, and has a lifetime of failed relationships. He is a single dad now and devotes his free time to raising his children and takes each day one at a time. Casey says he is into his "third year being a recovering alcoholic."
At 49, he teaches college students about physics and astronomy. Before that, he worked as a nuclear engineer in Hartsville, SC. He currently lives in the Myrtle Beach area where he feels that “I’m stable at this point in my life.” But, “I can’t morally walk away from what my brother did to me and most likely other kids, too. He’s a rapist and a predator.”
Casey also states that his brother Scott was allegedly charged and arrested for arson at WVU when he and others set fire to the ROTC building in the late 1960's. Scott graduated in 1970.
Thomas Scott King the Principal
Records show that Thomas Scott King has been a teacher, vice principal and principal in several schools across the state (and possibly worked for the Post Office when he lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico) from McDowell to Mingo, Lewis and Fayette Counties. In fact, he was featured in the Charleston Gazette and Daily Mail newspapers in September 1990 as the new Matewan High School principal who first discovered that football players at the schools had their grades falsified so they could play sports.
At the time Scott was arrested, Casey said he was visiting his parents in the Bluefield area. As they watched the 11 pm news on Channel 6, a story came on about Scott being arrested on the contributing charges. He remembers how he and his mother and father just sat there dumbfounded. “They both sat there and didn’t make any comments at all.”
Scott King was also involved in another scandal that caused several foreign exchange students attending Lewis County High School to return to their homeland early because of incidents that occurred while King oversaw that program and had several of the teens living at his home. He admitted in a March 1996 Charleston Gazette story that he had been playing “host dad” to at least 6 exchange students over the past six years. He told the newspaper reporter that “It’s a little bit of a challenge, but usually very rewarding.”
Reportedly, by one county board source, sealed school records show that one of the boys provided a statement that Scott King came into his bedroom several times and tried to rape him. The exchange student ran from King’s home on the second assault and hid at a friend’s home. His very frequent movement from school to school since the late 1970’s suggests a pattern of possible problems that his superiors and the Board of Education were aware of and concealed.
A Professionals Opinion Of Thomas Scott King
Former Matewan school counselor, Hester Keatley, has years of training in both helping abused children and in recognizing the signs of an abuser. Ms Keatley is so well respected in the school system that she was still asked to train new counselors after retiring.
She worked for Thomas Scott King when he spent a short time as Principal there in 1989-1990. What did her training and instincts tell her??? “He knew that I knew what he was doing to those boys.” And, “He always had young male foreign exchange student in his home too. He constantly had groups of boys with him at all times." Ms Keatley says that the Board Of Education was made aware of the complaints from the male foreign exchange students. At least one signed statements against King for inappropriate sexual contact.
“I knew he was an evil man.” Her observations became more then just suspicions; enough so that she went to the school board. But, they took no visible official action. Soon afterward, Principal King was moved to another school district.
Hester said that she worried about Kings then teenage son Justin, who was a sophomore when he came to Matewan. “He displayed signs of a child who may have been sexually abused himself.” Does that seem so hard to believe? Scott Kings own brother, Casey, is the person who first came forward with the accusations his older brother Scot raped and molested him at the age of 7.
“I hope and pray he pays for the damages he has done to all the innocent boys. I hope he is hung by the balls.”
Update November 19, 2011
Since the story was first released in 2008, Casey told WV News that “numerous people have contacted me, most with stories of their sons, friends or male relatives and their experiences with Scott. Almost all of their stories involved Scott taking children on school and personal trips, a hotel stay and then an encounter in the middle of the night. Photographs were also mentioned in some of the letters. According to the emails, many of the young boys grew up and later became involved with drugs and alcohol. This seems to be prevalent in sexual abuse.”
He goes on to say that now, he is in the best relationship of his life and with the woman of my dreams. He is still enjoying a successful career as a physics professor both full-time and part-time at two different colleges and live a contented life in Myrtle Beach, SC.
"I speak openly and honestly about what happened to me. I have shared my story with my children. They support me in sharing with others what happened to me and my attempts to seek prosecution for Scott. It is extremely important in my recovery to feel as though I have done everything within my power to stop Scott from doing to others what he did to me for years growing up.
After contacting the prosecuting attorney’s office in the county where the abuse occurred, I was told a conviction would not be obtainable in a case involving testimony alone without another victim coming forward. I can’t put Scott away alone, but I have made a stand and am not backing down. And I will stand with any others that decide the time has come to do something about him.”
Thomas Scott King reportedly lives in the Charleston, WV, area and could be either working or retired now from the US Post Office. Casey found his brother’s “Facebook” account online and was devastated to see that Scott, now 63-years old, had a long list of friends that include the names of young teens in the 10th grade.
He also says that Scott is heavily involved in the WV Democratic Party and State politics. Our search found a recent entry by Scott King on the FACEBOOK account of the "Charleston Democratic Executive Committee Fundraiser And Straw Poll." (link below)
Casey also contacted the McDowell County prosecutor’s office in hopes of bringing charges against Scott for the rapes since the last attack was in their jurisdiction. WV State Police investigator, Mike Spradlin, in Lewisburg WV, has been assigned the case. According to Casey, the last conversation he and the investigator had, Spradlin said that he felt they had enough to get an indictment, but not a conviction.
“I am willing to testify along with any one of them that decide to come forward. Remember that it isn’t just one person he did this to and chances are that there are dozens of boys, now men who were molested. The average pedophile molests over 100 children before they are stopped. I can't do it alone. I tried. Only together can we stop a pedophile.”
We called Investigator Spradlin in 2008 to confirm any information on an ongoing investigation. He said that he could not comment.
Casey has finally talked to his father about what happened so many years ago. His dad said he never knew what Scott had done to Casey, but, his only real question about it all was if Scott would be able to beat the charges. Howard T. King is retired and lives in an assisted living home in Southern WV. His mother passed away several years ago.
In Closing
Some who read this story will be quick to say we were wrong for writing it, that there is no proof that any crime has been committed, and that we have ruined this man and/or his career. To those people we say, there is a pattern here that clearly shows that, at the very least, Thomas Scott King was caught, arrested and convicted of contributing to a minor.
He was a 47-year old school principal and authority figure who admitted to authorities that he took a 17-year old male student to Charleston WV in 1996 and spent at least one night with him in a motel.
Even though Thomas Scott King has no convictions for sexual assaults, rape or even being listed as a pedophile does not mean he is not. How often do pedophiles and rapists slip through the cracks?
This is a man who had spent years being moved from school to school in the WV system until he was finally forced to resign his teaching credentials as part of a plea agreement to stay out of jail and face more severe charges. He also is the same man whose personnel files at several schools (at least the Fayette County Board of Education) are allegedly sealed.
Casey has asked us to include his home telephone number and e-mail address at the end of this story for anyone to call him if they have information, and/or questions. He emphatically states that he harbors no revenge for his brother Scott, and even tried to talk him into receiving counseling instead of being publicly exposed for his sexual assaults on Casey years ago. His brother refused, and disconnected his phone.
Coming forward to expose what his own brother did to him as a child takes more nerve and guts than most people will ever face in a lifetime. Casey King is a hero to all of the sexually abused children that continue to be assaulted everyday at the hands of someone they know and trust.
Thomas Scott King will most likely deny any and all accusations from his brother or anyone else that comes forward to accuse him. Take away his brother’s claims that Scott sexually abused him as a child and you still have the 1996 conviction and his plea deal to resign from the WV school system.
We have attempted to locate and interview Thomas Scott King but could not.
If you would like to contact Casey King:
Walter “Casey” King
Ph: (843) 450-6482
Email: mbsingledad@aol.com
End Of Story
Jack Swint – Publisher
West Virginia News
E-Mail: WestVirginiaNews@gmail.com
Website: http://www.WestVirginiaNewsOnline.com
Twitter: @WVNewsOnline
LinkedIn: Jack Swint
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