Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence

The Ketchikan School District is going to hire an independent investigator to look into the district’s actions regarding former teacher Doug Edwards, who faces charges that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl at the high school, as well as other locations.

The school board voted Monday to hire an investigator at the end of a special meeting called to discuss a personnel complaint against Superintendent Robert Boyle.

Board President Trevor Shaw confirms the complaint was related to the Edwards case.

The complaint was filed in late June with a two-week deadline to respond.

Shaw said Tuesday that Boyle was out of town, and got back on the day of that deadline, which was Monday.

Shaw said Monday’s executive session lasted about an hour and 40 minutes.

When they came back into regular session, the board voted for Shaw to identify an entity to look into the district’s actions related to Edwards’ conduct.

“The whole goal is to find someone who could be a third-party investigator who has no relation, existing relation, connection or prior relationship with the district, to be able to come in and do a full and independent review,” Shaw said. “Just in my initial conversations this morning, this is still kind of uncharted territory. We’re kind of taking it as it comes.”

Shaw is consulting with state and national school board associations, along with other colleagues, for advice on who to approach for the job. He said the board consulted its attorney before voting Monday.

Shaw stressed that the investigation isn’t into Edward’s alleged criminal behavior.

“That’s not what we’re doing. We’re investigating what the district’s response and actions were in relation to a former employee who happened to commit criminal behavior,” he said. “This is nothing to do with an investigation specifically of Mr. Edwards, but how the district and administration handled his conduct, what they knew of his conduct and the aftermath of that.”

Shaw said the board likely will have to schedule a special meeting later this month to take further action.

Edwards was the long-time culinary arts teacher at Ketchikan High School and a local pastor.

He retired at the end of this school year, and was charged just days after with multiple counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

Gov. Bill Walker signed a measure into law Friday that aims to address what some call a backlog of untested sexual assault kits.

“Leaving evidence untested is like leaving a crime scene without investigating,” Walker said in a news release from his office. “We can and will do better.”

House Bill 31 requires an annual audit of unsubmitted and untested sexual assault kits. The measure aims to curtail the accumulation of the kits, as authorities address the backlog.

Anchorage Democrat Rep. Geran Tarr introduced the bill.

Recently retired Ketchikan High School teacher and local pastor Doug Edwards has been arrested and charged with three counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

According to the complaint filed in court by police Detective Devin Miller, the charges stem from alleged incidents last fall with a 14-year-old girl. She knew Edwards through his roles as a pastor with First Baptist Church and as a culinary arts teacher at Ketchikan High School.

Police said Edwards admitted to the crimes.

Ketchikan Police Sgt. Andy Berntson said the investigation started in mid-April, when the girl’s father approached police to report that his daughter told him and her mother about the incidents.

“These things do sometimes take some time,” he said. “There are a lot of different investigative techniques you can use. You certainly want as much information available before you present it for prosecution and look at charges.”

The girl also spoke to police, according to the complaint. In her statement, she provided details of multiple encounters. In each, Edwards allegedly reached into the girl’s shirt, under her bra and groped the girl’s chest.

One encounter allegedly happened in the basement of the church when she was alone, playing the piano. Another allegedly happened at Edwards’ home, where she had gone to watch a movie with another girl. A third encounter allegedly took place in the storage area of the high school’s culinary arts room.

According to the complaint, Edwards admitted to police that the encounters took place, and that he had groped the girl’s breast. Police said that Edwards also admitted doing the same thing to another young girl.

Berntson said police are aware of the impact of these kinds of charges to everyone involved, and are careful to make sure they are confident about the allegations.

“In all cases you want to be sure, but certainly there’s a higher level of scrutiny on higher-profile cases and a higher level of crimes, which this is both,” he said. “It’s certainly going to have a big impact on the community as well as the suspect and victim.”

In a news release late Monday, police said the investigation is continuing. Berntson said that’s partly because of the other girl Edwards identified, along with any other information that might come forward as a result of the charges.

Berntson said he can’t say whether the school district was aware of the investigation before this week, but it isn’t common for police to involve anyone else in an investigation like this one.

Edwards had his first court hearing Tuesday morning in Ketchikan Superior Court. He was released on a $10,000 unsecured bond, with conditions that he surrender his passport and remain in his home except for court hearings and to meet with an attorney. Edwards also is not to have contact with girls under 16.

His next hearing is scheduled June 22.

Former House Rep. Zach Fansler will plead guilty, though not to assault, almost six months after he was accused of slapping a woman in his hotel room.

Fansler has agreed to plead guilty to one count second-degree harassment, a misdemeanor charge, State Ethics Attorney Maria Bahr said in a conversation Friday with KYUK.

“Under that particular provision he’ll be pleading to the charge of subjecting another person to offensive physical contact,” Bahr said.

Bahr added that this particular charge applies to “offenses against public order,” whereas an assault charge applies to an offense against a person.

A rising star in Alaska’s Democratic party, Zach Fansler resigned his seat in the state house after a woman accused him of drunkenly hitting her and rupturing her eardrum.

Alaska’s Office of Special Prosecutions has been reviewing the incident for several months.

Bahr says that Fansler doesn’t have a court date yet, but that his change of plea will take place in Juneau.

JUNEAU — Alaska lawmakers have inserted $2.75 million into the state’s capital budget to fund the testing of the backlog of rape kits.

Juneau Empire reports the funding boost this week will help pay to send the kits to outside labs to examine the untested DNA evidence from sexual assault cases over the past several years.

According to the state Department of Public Safety, there are more than 3,400 untested rape kits from police departments across the state.

Legislators have also approved a bill that requires the state to report the number of untested kits.

Randi Breager, a criminal justice planner at the state crime lab, says the new money will help testing, but getting through the backlog will take time.

The Haines Borough School Board renamed the high school gym. The facility, known for decades as the Karl Ward Gymnasium, will now be called the Haines High School Gymnasium.

The action comes after allegations of sexual abuse by Ward were made public in the community.

“When I heard there were people who walked by the gym or walked by the plaque and felt pain, I just thought that was awful,” School Board President Anne Marie Palmieri said.

The High School gym was named after Karl Ward in the early 1990s.

A sign bearing his likeness was hung in the hallway outside the gym, but it’s since been removed.

Ward worked as a teacher, principal and superintendent at the Haines School from the 1950s through his retirement in the 1970s.

Ward died more than 20 years ago.

KHNS reported last month about alleged sexual abuse by Ward when he worked at the Haines School.

Several former students of the Haines School also have shared memories of Ward’s behavior, including inappropriate touching, with the Chilkat Valley News.

Palmieri hopes the school board’s action will help community members heal.

“I hope that by changing the name, it provides some closure for people who were affected by this,” Palmieri said.

Board member Sara Chapell also supported changing the gym name.

“To hear that it hurt people to walk by the gym is really terrible,” Chapell said. “I’m in full support of changing the gym name. I also would support at some point, looking at whether it makes sense for us to have named facilities on our campus at all, and whether we should extend this change to other named places on the campus.”

The board voted unanimously in favor of the name change.

The Haines Borough Assembly passed a resolution last week to create a policy for naming public facilities within the Haines Borough.

The new policy will require a public comment period prior to the adoption of a name for a facility, or whether that name is to be removed.

Public facilities can only be named after people five years after their death.