Married teacher, 26, admits bombarding pupil, 16, with nudes and trying to pressure him into having sex
Rikki Lynn Laughlin, 26, sent
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Rikki Lyn Laughlin, 26, pleaded guilty to exchanging nudes with an underage teen
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The teacher claimed she was not aware that the student was a minor
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She begged the boy to come over and have sex with her while her husband was away
Laughlin also begged the student to come over and have
sex
with her while her husband was away.
The 26-year-old was a special needs teacher at St James High School in St James, Missouri, during the time of the crimes between September 8 and October 19.
Laughlin pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of endangering the welfare of a child without sexual contact,
Maries County officials first launched an
investigation
after a Phelps County detective tipped them off about an inappropriate relationship at the school,
at the time, citing a probable cause statement by the County Sheriff's Office.
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The teen then told cops that Laughlin approached him online and sent him nudes and video of herself using a dildo, before asking for images from him in return.
She reportedly asked him to delete the sexually explicit content out of fear of getting into legal trouble, or of people finding out.
While he did delete some of them, he showed several others to the
.
He told cops that "things progressed fast" after the Snapchat exchange, and that the mum-of-one had kissed him in a classroom.
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Most read in The US Sun
She allegedly invited him to have sex, but he "made excuses" because "he did not feel comfortable", according to a probable cause statement by the Maries County Sheriff's Office.
Laughlin reportedly claimed to police that the teen made contact first - but did not deny the relationship had occured.
Major update on teacher, 34, who had BABY with boy, 13, & was exposed when 'his dad realised he looked like her child'
She claimed: "I was not aware he was a minor until yesterday."
The former teacher was charged in October 2024 with a seven alleged sex crimes against the student - including statutory rape and possession of child pornography.
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On Thursday, she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of endangering the welfare of a child.
Laughlin was sentenced to five years of probation.
There full list of charges she initially faced is felony counts of possession of child pornography, tampering or attempting to tamper with a victim in a felony prosecution, statutory rape – 2nd degree, sexual exploitation of a minor, tampering with physical evidence in a felony prosecution, furnishing pornographic material to a minor, and sexual trafficking of a child – 2nd degree.
After Laughlin's arrest, the school district Superintendent Tim Webster said: "The District takes these matters seriously and reported allegations to appropriate outside agencies, including
law
enforcement.
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"We have been actively cooperating with these agencies since the initial report."
She was fired from her role teaching job after being charged.
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The Irish Sun
a day ago
- The Irish Sun
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A shocking online abuse ring that began in China is now taking root in the UK, with faceless, cowardly thugs charging for horrific torture videos inspired by a notorious killer KITTEN SLAYERS My beloved cat Morris was mutilated & killed by sick torture cult – how psychos target YOUR pets to abuse in vile videos EXCITEDLY opening a video sent from an unknown number, Caroline Prater's heart fluttered as she believed her beloved missing cat Morris had finally been found. Within moments she was 'completely destroyed' as the footage revealed her pet's lifeless body, having been all but decapitated and subjected to hours of torture for the pleasure of a demented online cult. 11 Caroline Prater has been scarred for life by the horrific torture and killing of her 11-year-old cat Morris Credit: SWNS:South West News Service 11 Footage of the beloved pet's mutilated corpse was sent to Caroline and shared amongst ghouls online Credit: SWNS 11 Vile murderer Luke Magnotta is feared to have inspired a growing online cult of cat abusers A shocking new investigation has discovered how thousands of sickos across the world - including Brits and children as young as ten - are sharing videos of cats being mutilated in vile online torture groups. Chillingly, it is claimed the depraved international network is so prolific that an execution or torture video has been uploaded every 14 hours over the space of a year. Among the most chilling discoveries were a three-month-old kitten allegedly impaled by children and another caged cat lowered to its death in boiling water. And now, experts have warned The Sun of potential links between the abominable abuse ring and a famous cat torturer and killer, warning such attacks could even escalate to murder in extreme cases. The sick snuff films are typically created by animal abusers in China, but increasingly police are investigating troubling links to the UK, too, after a spate of animal violence. This week, two Londoners, 16 and 17, who can't be named for legal reasons, were sentenced after cutting and stringing up cats in a grisly scene that involved knives, blowtorches and scissors. Caroline, 55, from Cadbury Heath, Bristol, knows the trauma such attacks can cause all too well after the 'absolutely horrific' videos of her 11-year-old therapy cat were posted to Snapchat for the 'thrill' of viewers. She tells The Sun: 'It's so harrowing. Who in their right minds would do that to an innocent animal. What do they get out of doing it? 'What they did to Morris is still raw nearly six years on. I had to quit my job as an animal therapist because people kept asking where he was and what happened to him. 'It completely destroyed me. You never get over it, I visualise him screaming in my head. The Sun's Alex West confronts murderer Luka Magnotta with photos the killer claims are 'photoshopped' "His head was hanging on by a piece of string. I had to go on tablets because I couldn't cope. 'Torture is going around everywhere. Animals are being skinned alive on social media, why can that be shown? It's horrendous.' '100 kill competitions' Activists from the international charity Feline Guardians Without Borders went undercover to expose the horrors of the cat abuse rings. Ghouls were found to be sharing vile videos for 'thrills' and even receiving payment from other twisted acolytes. Chillingly, UK-based members were found discussing how to adopt kittens from the RSPCA, with one monster posting a picture of an advert of cats for sale, saying they wanted to "torture them so bad", according to the BBC. Feline Guardians discovered 24 active groups this year alone, with the largest boasting more than 1,000 members. The most prolific user is said to have filmed 200 videos. We never found Morris, we don't know what happened to his body, all we found was blood and lots of fur stuck to the road Caroline Prater "I'm 10 years old and I like to torture cats," the member of one of these twisted forums proclaimed. Inside the groups, the discussions were described as 'the depths of evil' by activist Lara, of Feline Guardians, who went undercover. She found posts encouraging users to guess how long a cat could survive without food and others claimed they electrocuted animals to resuscitate them during torture sprees, prolonging their agony. 11 Kittens are being purchased to be tortured online, a new investigation has found Credit: BBC 11 Georgina Barnes and her cat Bubba, who was mutilated by a cat killer Credit: Damien McFadden 11 Murderer Scarlet Blake pictured in a cat-killing video Credit: PA 11 The monster was found guilty last year of murdering Jorge Martin Carreno Credit: PA Another self-proclaimed 'cat-lover community' urged members to 'submit your work' and some only allowed entry if they submitted evidence of them abusing pets. One particularly twisted group held a '100 cat kill competition' in September 2023 to see how quickly they could reach their target. Netflix killer The cases bear worrying similarities to videos filmed by Canadian Luka Magnotta, who was jailed for 25 years in 2014 for the murder of a Chinese lover. After an investigation by The Sun, he was unmasked as the man behind videos online that depicted kittens being killed in chilling ways and was the focus of 2019 Netflix documentary Don't F*** With Cats. His crimes have since inspired 'copycats' including Scarlet Blake, who was jailed in the UK last year after live-streaming herself mutilating a cat just four months before the brutal murder of stranger Jorge Martin Carreno. Teemu Saarenpää, 41, who runs true crime blog Forenseek, interviewed remorseless Magnotta after his conviction and fears these current killers are his 'soulmates'. 'Someone does it first and that opens the doors for others. There may be an epidemic nature to this and unfortunately animal torture seems to be a fetish for those like Magnotta,' he tells The Sun. 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Lara, from Feline Guardians, also fears cat abuse rings 'will only continue to expand and get worse' without an urgent crackdown from the Chinese government and law enforcement. It was just an endless scroll of torture videos, one after the other... I felt, 'I just can't watch this'... I had to sort of turn off my brain Undercover Feline Guardians activist "In mainland China, there are no laws that are stopping this,' she told the BBC. 'So that means that abusers and torturers can effectively do what they want and live out these very sadistic fantasies without any consequence. 'These videos are then uploaded, and essentially that's a global problem, because that means that everyone has access to these videos. Children are seeing this.' Since the torture cult's links to the UK have been discovered, the RSPCA and other animal rights groups have called for a clampdown. 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The Irish Sun
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The Irish Sun
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