The schoolgirl allegedly abused by Virginia football coach Travis Turner broke her silence for the first time since he vanished into the Appalachian woods last year — telling in a heartbreaking statement how she initially blamed herself for the scandal.
“I did not feel like a victim,” said a statement from the girl read on her behalf at the Wise County School Board meeting Monday, the TimesNews reported.
“I felt like I was the problem. I felt like I had embarrassed the school, damaged the reputation of the coaching staff and disrupted something I was supposed to protect instead of myself,” the statement added.
Travis Turner has been missing since November.Facebook/Leslie Turner
It was read by a Wise County resident, Stephen Murray, who claimed he brought it on her behalf — and also listed three other county school teachers who have been charged with sexual misconduct in recent years.
“This is just the cases that have been reported and charged,” Murray said, joining a chorus of irate residents who lambasted the board. “When there is this much abuse, it’s not just a few bad apples. It is a culture. The fish rots from the head down.”
The meeting was the Wise County School Board’s first allowing public comments since Turner vanished in November as police were on the way to question him over child porn and exploitation accusations.
Turner — a 46-year-old father and pillar of the Big Stone Gap community where he coached boys football at Union High School — hasn’t been seen since he disappeared, despite extensive manhunts combing the rugged local terrain.
The schoolgirl (not pictured) allegedly abused by Virginia football coach Travis Turner broke her silence for the first time since he vanished into the Appalachian woods last year.
He was last seen with a gun walking in the woods behind his house on Nov. 20 — with police arriving at his home hours later to question him as part of a child sex crimes investigation. Turner was officially hit with child pornography charges and five counts of soliciting a minor days after he vanished.
Authorities have provided few substantive updates since.
A man claiming to be the grandfather of his alleged victim also spoke at the Wise County School Board meeting, telling how he was “proud” of her for coming forward and stopping other kids from being abused with her courage.
“I’m extremely proud of my granddaughter. What she did probably saved some other children. I suppose there’s a reason for everything, as God says in due time,” the grandfather said, according to WCYB.
The victim said she initially blamed herself for the scandal in a heartbreaking statement.Facebook/Leslie Turner
Murray also named each Wise County teacher charged with sex crimes in just the last five years.
They were Dalton Bates, a band director at Central High hit in 2020 with child porn charges; Union High teacher and coach Timothy Lee Meador, who pleaded guilty to child solicitation and indecent liberties charges in 2023; and Tyler J. Tibbs, a teacher at Coeburn Middle School charged in August with taking indecent liberties with a child.
“How is this abuse allowed to continue?” Murray asked the board.
“From where I’m standing, it seems the people you are trying to protect are not the kids but it’s the reputations of the administrators, and the school board has been complicit in the sexual abuse,” he added.
The board declined to comment at the meeting.
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