Alabama teacher dies 2 days after arrest on student sex charges
A teacher at R.A. Hubbard High School was found dead this morning, two days after she was arrested on felony charges of having sex with students, the authorities said.
Leslie Gillespie was found dead at her home in Hillsboro, a small town in Lawrence County around 11:30 a.m., said Scott Norwood, the county coroner.
“It appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Norwood said. Gillespie’s body will be autopsied at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
Gillespie, 44, was an English teacher at R.A. Hubbard, according to the school website. The school is located in North Courtland, a small town in Lawrence County in north Alabama.
Gillespie was arrested Thursday on felony charges of having sex with two students — ages 15 and 16 at the time — according to court records. A Lawrence County sheriff’s office investigator wrote in a criminal complaint that the sexual contact happened when Gillespie met with the two students in her classroom after school during September of 2020. She was booked into the Lawrence County jail on two counts of school employee engaging in a sex act with a student younger than 19 and one count each of second-degree rape and second-degree sodomy. She was released on $60,000 bail later Thursday, records show.
https://www.al.com/news/2021/05/alabama-teacher-dies-2-days-after-arrest-on-student-sex-charges.html