West Virginia Teacher Has Four Kids With Student.

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Man claims teacher sexually abused him for 14 years, says former Wheeling Park principal knew

By Chris Dickerson | Apr 4, 2019


WHEELING – A Marshall County man says his former teacher sexually and mentally abused him for years, starting when he was her student in middle school and continuing for 14 years, including the birth of four children together.

He also claims other school personnel, including a principal who now is a member of the Ohio County Board of Education, knew of the situation but did nothing to stop it.

Christopher Birch filed his complaint April 4 in Ohio Circuit Court against the school board, Christine Carder and Elizabeth Harbert.

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Birch’s relationship with Harbert began when he was a 13-year-old student at Bridge Street Middle School. He was her student and a member of the track team she coached.

“He thought of her as a mom,” the complaint states. “She played dual roles of mother and guardian, teacher, coach and girlfriend.”

Over the next 14 years, Birch says he tried to leave Harbert more than 30 times, saying he did so recently when he “finally found the way forward that did not cost him a relationship with his young children.”

“A 14-year-old cannot consent to sex with his 28-year-old teacher guardian coach,” the complaint states. “The sexual abuse and assault continued for over a decade unabated, with Chris admittedly at times believing he was in love.

“The abuse was apparently widely suspected and known by the principal, teachers, parents and even other peers. Reports were made, the teacher was told of such reports, and the school took no meaningful action to investigate even in the face of a teacher who was recently divorced, now pregnant, coming to and from school every day with Chris, and other obvious possible red flags of abuse.”

According to the complaint, Birch was living with his grandmother during the 2004-05 school year when he was an eighth-grade student at Bridge Street. He never knew his father, and his mother struggled with addiction. During the school year, Birch began living with Harbert and her then-husband, who also coached the track team.

“Harbert was Chris’s science teacher at BSMS,” the complaint states. “She would help him, give him advice and guide him.

She began purchasing things for Chris, including shoes. He was struck by this because she would let him pick out any shoes he wanted, an option he had never had prior to this. By the end of the school year, defendant Harbert decided Chris would move in with her and her husband and she offered to him and her husband.”

One time during the summer of 2004, Birch says the first instance of sexual abuse occurred. He was in bed sick at Harbert’s home. He was 14, and she was 28. She had just been appointed his guardian.

“Harbert abused Chris, while Chris was in bed sick, with sexual petting and kissing,” the complaint states. “After that, the incidences of sexual contact increased and the first incident of sexual intercourse occurred in September 2004, after school.

“Defendant Harbert would regularly sleep in Chris’s bed when her husband worked overnight.”

Birch says Harbert’s husband at the time was a coal miner and worked shift work.

“Harbert would set a trap by the door so she’d have an audible warning of her husband coming in the front door (if unexpectedly) with his key, which would then presumably give her time to change bedrooms back to the master suite bed,” the complaint states.

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Birch says the first incidence of abuse by way of sexual intercourse occurred one September evening after school that year. Harbert took Birch to a drug store in Ohio so they wouldn’t be noticed buying condoms.

“After the sexual intercourse, Chris mentioned that he felt sad that he had lost ‘Liz’ as a mother,” the complaint states. “In response, defendant Harbert told Chris, then 14 years old, that, ‘He should just think of her as 70 percent mom and 30 percent girlfriend; no big deal.’

“As time went by and Chris progressed in high school, the percentages changed until she was ’70 percent girlfriend and 30 percent mom’ and then the concept faded away.”