Search For Tennessee Girl Allegedly Abducted By Teacher Goes Nationwide [VIDEO]
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - There's now a nationwide alert to find a 15-year-old Tennessee girl who was allegedly abducted by her teacher.
Police say Elizabeth Thomas was last seen March 13 in Columbia, Tenn. and is believed to be with 50-year-old Tad Cummins, a health science teacher at her school.
An Amber Alert issued last week says Cummins "may have been abusing his role as a teacher to groom this vulnerable young girl for some time in an effort to lure and potentially sexually exploit her."
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says they remain "extremely concerned" about Thomas' safety because there have been so few sightings reported. The agency has issued two nationwide alerts to law enforcement, TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said.
Months before the alleged abduction, a student at at Tennessee's Culleoka Unit School saw Cummins kissing Thomas on the lips, according to school records provided to The Associated Press.
Despite the report from the other student, Cummins was allowed to continue teaching and nobody in the school system bothered notifying the girl's family about the kiss allegations, according to attorney Jason Whatley. He said the school system must have not believed the student's report of seeing Cummins kiss the girl.
"This is my client's daughter, and she's been taken. She's been abducted, and I can't figure out for the life of me why no one believed this middle school student," Whatley said.
The father, Whatley said, only learned of the kissing allegation a week later after a detective with the Maury County Sheriff's Department went to the home to investigate.
The school system didn't suspend Cummins until Feb. 6, the day that a letter from the father's attorney was hand-delivered to Maury County school officials. The letter to Maury County School Superintendent Christopher Marczak demanded that the father be updated on what school officials had learned and that his daughter not have contact with the teacher.
The girl's father, Anthony Thomas, is outraged that officials delayed telling him about the report and let the teacher continue working in the school, according to the lawyer.
"My client's position, respectfully, is that Mr. Cummins should have been out the door until the police investigation was completed," Whatley said.
Marczak did not return a call seeking comment.
School officials did send files to the father after the lawyer sent the letter.
The school's investigative files provided to the father show that both Cummins and the girl denied kissing. The teacher, however, acknowledged that the girl was "a really good friend and she does leave her other classes to come see him when she needs someone to calm her down," according to a school report dated Jan. 30.
The report said the allegation could not be confirmed but recommended that the girl be taken out of Cummins' forensics class and that he be reprimanded to uphold his professional responsibility as a teacher. The report also recommended that the administration monitor Cummins' classroom to make sure students weren't there when they weren't supposed to be.
The teacher would later be reprimanded on Feb. 3 by school principal Penny Love after the girl was seen in Cummins classroom for a little more than half an hour that day. In her letter, Love said the girl being in his classroom was a violation of the principal's order to him.
Cummins was fired a day after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued an Amber Alert about the teen.
Thomas was last seen wearing a flannel shirt and black leggings. She's described as 5'5" tall and 120 lbs., with blonde hair and hazel eyes.
Cummins is described as 6' tall and 200 lbs. with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen driving a Silver Nissan Rogue with Tennessee license plate 976ZPT.
Anyone who sees the pair or knows of their whereabouts should call 911.
© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
