November 4, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of the “Bad Teachers” Series, Jim Chapman brings you into the case of Angela Comer, a Kentucky teacher who went on the run with her 14 year old student and made it all the way to Mexico.
Timestamps:
09:29 Teacher's Suspicions
19:20 The Search for Justin and Angela
26:42 Angela Comer's Legal Troubles
28:37 A Disturbing Case
Follow “Crime Wire Weekly” on it’s new channel HERE:
Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crime-wire-weekly/id1815864889
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/3zyrgjtW6gLUVbicJaYXV9?si=0dbf4983938344a2
Amazon Music
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3738411d-828e-4138-9976-223ab5de2c87/the-crime-wire-weekly
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/exposed-scandalous-files-of-the-elite--6073723/support.
Timestamps:
09:29 Teacher's Suspicions
19:20 The Search for Justin and Angela
26:42 Angela Comer's Legal Troubles
28:37 A Disturbing Case
Follow “Crime Wire Weekly” on it’s new channel HERE:
Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crime-wire-weekly/id1815864889
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/3zyrgjtW6gLUVbicJaYXV9?si=0dbf4983938344a2
Amazon Music
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3738411d-828e-4138-9976-223ab5de2c87/the-crime-wire-weekly
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/exposed-scandalous-files-of-the-elite--6073723/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of
the Elite. I am your host, Jim Chapman, and today
I am bringing you another episode in the Bad Teacher series.
Now we're gonna start off in Tompkinsville, Kentucky for this one,
and I'm gonna tell you a little bit about angela
(00:21):
comer who in two thousand and six, at the age
of twenty six years old, fled the state of Kentucky
with her fourteen year old student she was having a
sexual relationship with and escaped to Mexico. Really unbelievable story here,
and I'm gonna start it off by telling you a
(00:41):
little bit about Tompkinsville, Kentucky, where this incident took place. Now,
Tompkinsville is a small town of a little over two
thousand people. It's on the southern border of Kentucky, but
it's in the center of the state on that southern edge,
and it has a little bit of history with both
the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Now, it's definitely
(01:06):
not the type of place where you would imagine something
would occur like the story I'm about to tell you about.
So let's go back to two thousand and six, and
I'm going to tell you about a math teacher by
the name of Angela Comber. She taught at Monroe County
Middle School. She was an eighth grade teacher. Now, Angela
(01:27):
was twenty six years old, and she was very attractive,
blond hair, five six, kind of statuesque female, certainly noticeable
to any fourteen year old boy. So at the time
of this incident, Comber had taught at Monroe County Middle
School for about a year and a half, and prior
(01:48):
to that, she had taught at what's known as Baron
County Middle School. That was for about two years. So
despite the fact that she was only twenty six years old,
she had already had nearly four years of teaching experience.
She wasn't new at this, not that that necessarily would matter.
(02:10):
And despite the fact that Comber was known as a
creative and enthusiastic teacher, she did have some performance issues
according to the school administration, which means that her students
they were not scoring on a level expected on test, etc. Apparently,
(02:30):
whatever her style of teaching, if you will, whatever that was,
her students were not learning as she should and that
was reflecting in their test scores and I would say
that could have something to do with what was going
on behind the scenes in Comer's personal life, which was
just absolutely a mess. Just two years prior to the incident, now,
(02:53):
in two thousand and four, Angela Comber filed petitions against
her own parents, claimed that her father had bruised her
arm and that her mother had abused her verbally, mentally,
and physically. She also said at that time in two
thousand and four, that her parents had threatened to take
custody of her young son. So then, three months prior
(03:19):
to the incident taking place that I am about to
tell you about, Angela Comber filed for divorce of her husband, David,
saying he was abusive. However, just a few days after filing,
she rescinded that filing. She essentially changed her mind. Now,
right after rescinding those papers, she abruptly quit her teaching
(03:44):
job at Monroe County Middle School. This was in November
of two thousand and five. So interesting that when I
researched this case, I had to refer to a lot
of old newspaper articles. Usually when I I go back
more than about five years to ten years, the articles
that I can find online pretty tough to find. I
(04:08):
have a subscription to a service that actually brings together
all these old newspaper articles and sometimes you can dig
up some really good information. That's what I had to
do here in this case. A lot of these old
newspaper articles were from Kentucky, where all this went down.
And one thing that stood out to me was that
(04:30):
way back in two thousand and six, they didn't protect
the victim's identity like they do today. I mean, this
kid's first name and last name, fourteen year old kid,
mind you, his name was everywhere when all of this
came out in the media, which is very strange these days.
(04:52):
Usually they'll use initials, they'll give an age, but there's
no way that the media is going to report the
name of a victim. A lot of people say that
revictimizes the person. I think it also speaks to the
fact that even back then, well I would say, especially
back then when you were a guy and you were
(05:14):
fourteen and your teacher was twenty six, like in this case,
it didn't really look at you as a victim. It's
just facts. It's why I do this series. So getting
back to it, I'm not gonna use his full name
I'll just use his first name, and his first name
was Justin, And I'm going to tell you a little
bit about Justin. Now, Justin in two thousand and five,
(05:36):
and in two thousand and six, and even prior to that,
he lived with his grandmother, who was his legal guardian.
And she was also no stranger to education herself. She
had been a supervisor of education before her retirement, and
even after retiring, she still worked as a substitute teacher. Now,
(05:57):
in addition to that, she also took care of the
grounds in dig gardening in a large apartment complex in
the area, not because she had to, but because she
wanted to. Now, Justin had lived with his grandmother for
six years, since he was eight years old. This poor
lady was sixty eight years old when all of this
(06:19):
went down that she had to deal with sixty eight Now,
apparently Justin he didn't have an easy early childhood. It
was very unsettled. As a matter of fact, he stayed
with several different relatives before settling in with his grandmother.
And it's kind of surprising to me because when I
(06:42):
researched his family name, well, it was a very powerful
name in the Monroe County area. His father, as a
matter of fact, at one point was the most powerful
attorney in that county. Justin's mother and father, however, they
never got married. Apparently she got pregnant, she had Justin,
(07:05):
and I don't know, maybe they weren't in love or whatever,
but they never got married, and drug abuse plagued his father,
that high powered attorney, so much so that in nineteen
ninety seven, Justin's grandmother she files charges against Justin's dad, which,
by the way, that's her own biological son. She said
(07:28):
that he threatened to kill her, and she blamed drugs
for her son's demise. Probably pretty good and accurate description,
mayor of why he turned out the way he did
and was threatening to kill his own mother. This was
just shortly after her son had been accused by her
of stealing a five thousand dollars boat from her. And
(07:51):
that might not sound like much, but remember the timeframe.
That was way back in nineteen ninety seven. Five thousand
dollars gives you a nice boat. Surely after that, Justin's
dad life spiraled even more. He eventually lost his license
in the state of Kentucky to even practice law. So
(08:11):
let's get back to two thousand and five. And as
I said, this grandmother she knew the education system. She
also knew what would be considered appropriate and not so
appropriate when it came to teachers and students. And it
was in November of two thousand and five when she
became really suspicious. So shortly after Angela had left her
(08:37):
job at the school. Remember she got divorced, or she
filed for divorce, then she rescinded that, and shortly after
that she ended up leaving the teaching profession completely, just
quit her job. So shortly after that, Justin's grandmother started
hearing ramblings that Justin had had an affair with this
(08:59):
teacher comer. Now, initially, Grandma she chalked this up to
Justin lying to his friends because she was hearing a
lot of this from other kids that went to school
with Justin, and she's thinking, Eh, he's just trying to
become more popular at school. As I said, this is
a very pretty teacher, and so in her mind, he's
(09:21):
just trying to be a big man on campus. And
now that that teacher's not teaching there anymore, she can't
really defend herself to the other students. So that's what
she chalked it up to.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you
what happened in New York.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It cannot be as crazy as the case I told
you about yesterday in Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You know what, we should do a podcast about it,
and with that we did.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Crime War Weekly covers the crime news headlines that have
dominated the week.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
We cover trending crimes from all over the country and
even spread wrinkle in a few globally.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Simply by searching Crime Wire Weekly or clicking the link
in the description of this podcast. She just couldn't believe
the idea of this beautiful, married, twenty six year old
teacher with a son of her own incidentally having any
(10:29):
interest in her fourteen year old grandson. And these were
other kids saying it, and they lie right, or he
lied to them, whatever. But things would change when parents
would start to notice. They would also hear kind of
these ramblings going around that Justin is messing or did
(10:49):
mess around with this teacher. And then they would go
to basketball games and lo and behold, Angela would show
up and she would bring food to Justin these basketball games. Now,
one thing I had not mentioned was the size of Justin. Now,
he was only fourteen years old, but he certainly looked
(11:11):
like a grand man. He was actually six foot two
and two hundred pounds at fourteen years old. Now doesn't
excuse anything that was done here, but it's important for context,
and you'll see why ledter on. So at some point
in November of two thousand and five, his grandmother, she
has a conversation with one of Justin's more trusted friends,
(11:37):
and that friend he tells the grandmother that he knows
for a fact Justin's not lying about sleeping with this teacher.
She says, well, how do you know that for a fact,
And he tells Justin's grandmother that one day he listened
in on the telephone while Justin called Angelo to set
(11:57):
up one of these hookups, if you will, and he
asked her if she had taken her birth control. And
that was totally in an effort to prove to his
friend that what he was telling him was legit. All
of this was set up by Justin. So the grandmother
at this point, she starts digging in even deeper into
(12:20):
her grandson's emails, et cetera. Now, this is two thousand
and six. Texting wasn't a thing back then like it
is now. I mean, back in two thousand and six,
you had. It took like forty five minutes to text
a sentence in two thousand and six, because you had
to go through each individual key. And for example, if
(12:44):
it was the number one on your telephone, on your
on your cell phone back then your flip phone, if
you will, it would have ABCD and you'd have to
if you wanted that sentence or that word to start
with D, you would have to hit the one button
four nine and the D would pop up. Then you'd
have to go to the next letter. It was horrible.
(13:06):
So there wasn't texting really back then like there is now.
But there was emailing and a lot of it. And
she goes through her son's emails and she discovers that
Comer and her grandson had been having an affair. There
was just these emails weren't that blatant, but they were
(13:26):
enough to where you knew something was not right. She
also discovered that they were accomplishing this in a unique way.
So grandma. She had trouble sleeping. She suffered from insomnian
She would take medicine, sleeping medicine to help her go
to sleep. The problem was she would take it and
(13:46):
she'd wake up two hours later and then you know,
it was just a nightmare from there, trying to fall
back asleep. Now, her grandson knew she had a pattern
like this. He had memorized her pattern, so he would
wait until she popped that pill and then he would
tell his teacher, you can come on over to the
(14:07):
house and they would actually have sex in the house
while the grandmother was sleeping, and she would get out
of the house before the grandmother woke up. So she
has a conversation with Justin after discovering these emails, even
though they weren't one hundred percent clear of what I
just told you, that was the inference that you could draw.
(14:30):
She has that conversation and Justin tells her Luck, you're
being ridiculous. You're building this up in your head. Me
and Angela Comer were just friends, which she knew it
was BS, but regardless, She tells him, you need to
stay away from her from now on. And she tells him,
(14:52):
I'm gonna be watching in my radars up and I'm
gonna throw this bitch in jail basically if this can now.
Two weeks after that, she also files charges against Angela
because although she felt that she couldn't prove any sort
of sexual relationship was going on with her grandson and
(15:13):
Angela Comber, she felt like she could prove another law
in Kentucky, and that law is known as unlawful transaction
with a minor. And what that is in Layman's term,
it basically means that Comer was causing Justin, who is
a miner, to disobey his grandmother. She's coersing him into that,
(15:36):
and that's a law, or was a law then in
two thousand and six, So she files as charges. You
get a coordinate, et cetera. So all of this, everything
I've just told you thus far leads us to January
six of two thousand and six and Justin's grandmother she
(15:56):
confronts him again on this alleged of that he's having
with his teacher because another friend, one she really trusted,
one of Justin's friend his father actually goes to the
grandmother and he tells her that something is still going
on with Justin and Angela Comber, his now at this
(16:19):
time former teacher. So she has another conversation. Justin denies
everything as you would expect, but she tells Justin, if
I got to bolt these doors to this house when
I go to sleep, I'll do it now. Interestingly enough,
this conversation took place just a week before the courtdate
(16:42):
for that unlawful transaction charge that I just told you about.
So the pressure's on, I'm sure with Angela Comber anyway,
and the time is ticking. So Justin he kisses his
grandmother on the head. He tells her he loves her.
She goes to bed, and while she's asleep, he packs
up his clothes. He packs up his iPod, which I
(17:06):
didn't say iPad iPod. This is two thousand and six.
iPads didn't exist, but iPods did. It was just basically
like a think of it, like a cell phone that
didn't make calls. All it did was download music. So
he packs that up, and he also takes her purse.
He actually steals her purse. Now in her purse was
(17:27):
eight hundred dollars cash. He takes his pillows, he piles
them under his blanket, sort of Ferris Bueller style. If
you're from my time frame, you'll know what that means.
And he did that to make it appear as though
he was sleeping, and he leaves the house. So the
(17:47):
next morning, Grandma she wakes up and she needs to
make a run to the post office. She gotta get
some stamps whatever. Maybe she's meiling a package. She notices
her perse is not where she left it. She's searching
all over the house for this purse. Finally she can't
find it anywhere else, says, she goes into Justin's room
(18:11):
to look, and that's when she discovers Justin ain't there.
So at this point she calls the Tompkinsville Police Department
and they quickly figure out within just a very short
period of time that not only is Justin missing, but
Angela Comer is missing, along with Angela Comber's four year
(18:35):
old son. And they have a really good idea that
these people are no longer in the state of Kentucky,
and they contact the FBI. So the FBI gets involved
because there's a big suspicion they've crossed state lines. It
becomes a federal crime, right and the first thing the
FBI does is they search Justin's computer, which was left
(19:00):
behind because it wasn't a laptop, it was a desktop computer.
You couldn't bring that thing with you. These were big
bubble back monitors back in those days, and the computers
weighed a thousand pounds, so you aren't taking that with
you on any sort of trip or to make a
quick getaway. So they search his computer and it's not
(19:23):
long before what they find on it gives them a
pretty good indication that Justin and his teacher were headed
to It may already be in what was known as
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which that's right across the border, y'all,
(19:43):
from Laredo, Texas.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
In the sultry heat of Louisiana, where the Bayous whisper
secrets and the air heavy with the scent of magnolias,
a darkness lurked beneath the surface. Dereck Todd Lee was
a man whose charm masked a sinister reality. He was
a monster. Lee, a seemingly ordinary man with a disarming smile,
led a double life that would unravel in a series
(20:17):
of murders in the capital city of Baton Rouge and
the surrounding areas. As the first reports of disappearances and
murders began to surface, South Louisiana was thrust into a nightmare,
igniting a frantic search for answers. The true horror was
just beginning, and the hunt for a serial killer eventually
known by just three letters, would reveal not only the
(20:37):
depths of Derek Todd Lee's depravity, but also the resilience
of those most affected by his evil acts, the families
and the survivors. This is DTL.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
DTL can be found by Searching Unspeakable, a true crime
podcast by Kelly Jennings wherever you listen to podcasts, Episode
one dropping November three. So the plan for these two
was to cross the border into Mexico and get married
due to the lacks of marriage laws in the country,
(21:16):
I guess you can. You know, in Mexico you can
marry a fourteen year old when you're twenty six. They
also had keep in mind Comber's four year old some
with them. So the FBI they figure this out. They
contact the Mexican authorities and they asked them, Hey, we
need y'all to canvass the hotels all throughout the area
(21:38):
and lo and behold they find them in a hotel.
Justin his teacher, Angela Comer, as well as Comber's four
year old son. They're all taken into custody. They're actually
brought to Texas and then they are transported back to Kentucky. Now,
(21:59):
at the time, Comer is charged with felony custodial interference
because police determined that Justin did indeed go willingly with her.
Of course, they interviewed him and he he said, you know,
she didn't force me to go, So no kidnapping charge
was filed, and on January nineteenth of two thousand and six,
(22:23):
Comer is formally indicted by the state of Kentucky. Now,
when the indictment came out, the charges kind of changed.
She got indicted for two counts of third degree sadomy,
four counts of unlawful transaction with a minor, and one
count of custodial interference. So she goes to court and
(22:45):
she enters a plea of not guilty, which everybody enters
a not guilty plea in their initial court appearance. That's
when bond is set, et cetera. And you got nothing
to lose by entering a not guilty plea. At an arrayment,
she gets a fifty thousand dollars cash bond, which she
(23:06):
eventually does bond out of jail, and time passes, and
a lot of time actually passes, and she eventually cuts
a deal like they all do, right, she pleads guilty.
She does this on May tenth of two thousand and seven,
a year and a half later, and she sentenced to
(23:26):
ten years in jail after pleading guilty to just one
count of sodomy and she got five years for that count.
In one count of custudio interference which she gets an
additional five years for. Now at the time when all
that went down and she took that plea and got sentenced,
(23:47):
Justin at that time was only sixteen, and this was
a year and a half after all this went down.
She did also admit to having sex with Justin several
times in open court. Then a month later, Angela Comber
comes out with this absolutely wild claim and she claims
(24:08):
that she was kidnapped and she was forced to drive
to Mexico with this fourteen year old teen y'all a gunpoint.
She said that the student was allegedly trying to get
away from his horrible home life and was considering suicide,
so he called her. He's depressed. He says, hey, I'm
(24:30):
gonna kill myself, and she tells him, oh, well, I'm
gonna pick you up and i'm gonna take you to
the courthouse. She doesn't tell him that over the phone,
she said, because she was worried about what would happen.
So she inferred that she was gonna pick him up
and they were gonna run off together, which is why
he had all his ship packed. But really she was
(24:50):
gonna bring him to the courthouse. So she shows up, He
gets in the car, and that's when she tells him, look,
we're gonna go to the courthouse. This is her story, right,
But she said rather than do that, he reaches into
her glove compartment. He knew that she carried a gun
in her glove compartment, and so he pulls the gun out,
(25:11):
points it at her, and tells her to drive. She
said that she attempted to get away twice. She said
once at a gas station and another time that she
tried to get away. He allegedly busted a guitar over
her head. This is her story. She also said she
was going through a difficult time and she was drinking
(25:33):
a lot, and that everything she did with this fourteen
year old was totally out of character for her. Everybody
that knew her and knew that this would never occur
if she were in her right state of mind, et cetera.
She went on to say that she is pissed at
herself for pleading guilty and that the only reason that
(25:57):
she plagued guilty was she did it to avoid the
stress of a public trial. And something that I did
not tell you occurred between the time that she posted
bail in the time that she took that plea, which
totally blows all this you already know it's bullshit, but
blows it all out of the water is even when
(26:19):
this lady was out on bail, she was caught sending
two nude pictures to this kid out on bail for
this relationship with this kid, and she can't help herself.
She takes two new pictures and emails them to this kid.
So decision making is on full display here, right. So
(26:43):
she goes to jail and in twenty ten she petitions
to be released, and fortunately that petition was denied. Though
I'm a little bit surprised because if you think it's
bad now with female teachers and students. Back in twenty ten,
it was really bad when it came to them actually
(27:05):
having to pay a price for their crime. But she
does get denied, and from there what happened to her?
The trail kind of runs cold a little bit. She
was eventually released, I know that for a fact, and
she's out now. And the way that I know that
is she still has to register as a sex offender.
And it says that she was released. So did she
(27:29):
serve her full term? I doubt it, but she probably
served the majority of it. In her case, now her
name's changed. She is now Angela Pointer Poynteer, So maybe
she got remarried after she got out of jail. Who knows.
I know that she no longer lives in the state
(27:51):
of Kentucky. I think she lives in Florida. Not one
hundred percent sure on that, but there you have it.
Wild story. Now, Now what blew my mind about all this?
This is a lady that essentially, as she kidnapped this kid,
I mean, he's fourteen years old, she brings him and
makes it all the way to Mexico with her own
(28:15):
four year old kid in two and she did say
in an interview at one point with the newspaper that
you know, she feels horrible for this, and she hopes
that her then four year old kid doesn't remember, you know,
will block out the memory of all that. Doubt it,
but a really wild scenario. I've never seen one where
(28:40):
somebody actually got all the way out of the country
one of these teachers with a kid that they were
having a relationship with. But there you have it. Now.
I want to take a second to say, if you
are a Patreon member, thank you so much. Look, the
show would not exist without these Patreon members. I love you.
(29:01):
Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for supporting Exposed
scandalous spiles of the Elite Bonus episode is heading your
way very soon. I hope you check that out. And incidentally,
this week dropped the first episode of DTL. You should
have heard an advertisement for DTL during this episode. DTL is,
(29:26):
of course a series that I produce. It is like
no other unspeakable a true crime podcasts by Kelly Jennings.
Award winning podcast award winning host Kelly Jennings takes you
through the absolutely horrific story of Derek Todd Lee, a
serial killer from the state of Louisiana actually from my area.
(29:49):
So check that out. I'll link it in the description
of this podcast. And please consider leaving us a review
if you have not yet done, and so I can't
tell you how much that helps the show. You don't
even have to put a whole sentence in there. You
can just put great, and hopefully you want to leave
(30:10):
five stars, especially if you're listening on Apple Podcasts. I
don't know about the other podcast platforms, but I know
Apple does it, and it really pushes us up that feed.
I would be forever in your debt if you consider
doing that. And lastly, this is the first episode since Halloween,
so I want to wish y'all all hopefully you had
(30:32):
a fantastic and happy, safe Halloween. You know what I
did on Halloween, just incidentally, I went and watched Halloween,
the actual I think it was nineteen seventy six version,
the very first Halloween. I hadn't seen that since I
was a kid. I went and saw that on the
big screen. One of the theaters here in my local
(30:55):
area was actually showing it, and I had a ton
of people in there. I forgot how good that very
first Halloween was. That's what I did. But hopefully whatever
you did, it was safe and you had a lot
of fun. And until next time for exposed scandalous files
of the elite, I'm your host, Jim Chapman, much love,
Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of
the Elite. I am your host, Jim Chapman, and today
I am bringing you another episode in the Bad Teacher series.
Now we're gonna start off in Tompkinsville, Kentucky for this one,
and I'm gonna tell you a little bit about angela
(00:21):
comer who in two thousand and six, at the age
of twenty six years old, fled the state of Kentucky
with her fourteen year old student she was having a
sexual relationship with and escaped to Mexico. Really unbelievable story here,
and I'm gonna start it off by telling you a
(00:41):
little bit about Tompkinsville, Kentucky, where this incident took place. Now,
Tompkinsville is a small town of a little over two
thousand people. It's on the southern border of Kentucky, but
it's in the center of the state on that southern edge,
and it has a little bit of history with both
the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Now, it's definitely
(01:06):
not the type of place where you would imagine something
would occur like the story I'm about to tell you about.
So let's go back to two thousand and six, and
I'm going to tell you about a math teacher by
the name of Angela Comber. She taught at Monroe County
Middle School. She was an eighth grade teacher. Now, Angela
(01:27):
was twenty six years old, and she was very attractive,
blond hair, five six, kind of statuesque female, certainly noticeable
to any fourteen year old boy. So at the time
of this incident, Comber had taught at Monroe County Middle
School for about a year and a half, and prior
(01:48):
to that, she had taught at what's known as Baron
County Middle School. That was for about two years. So
despite the fact that she was only twenty six years old,
she had already had nearly four years of teaching experience.
She wasn't new at this, not that that necessarily would matter.
(02:10):
And despite the fact that Comber was known as a
creative and enthusiastic teacher, she did have some performance issues
according to the school administration, which means that her students
they were not scoring on a level expected on test, etc. Apparently,
(02:30):
whatever her style of teaching, if you will, whatever that was,
her students were not learning as she should and that
was reflecting in their test scores and I would say
that could have something to do with what was going
on behind the scenes in Comer's personal life, which was
just absolutely a mess. Just two years prior to the incident, now,
(02:53):
in two thousand and four, Angela Comber filed petitions against
her own parents, claimed that her father had bruised her
arm and that her mother had abused her verbally, mentally,
and physically. She also said at that time in two
thousand and four, that her parents had threatened to take
custody of her young son. So then, three months prior
(03:19):
to the incident taking place that I am about to
tell you about, Angela Comber filed for divorce of her husband, David,
saying he was abusive. However, just a few days after filing,
she rescinded that filing. She essentially changed her mind. Now,
right after rescinding those papers, she abruptly quit her teaching
(03:44):
job at Monroe County Middle School. This was in November
of two thousand and five. So interesting that when I
researched this case, I had to refer to a lot
of old newspaper articles. Usually when I I go back
more than about five years to ten years, the articles
that I can find online pretty tough to find. I
(04:08):
have a subscription to a service that actually brings together
all these old newspaper articles and sometimes you can dig
up some really good information. That's what I had to
do here in this case. A lot of these old
newspaper articles were from Kentucky, where all this went down.
And one thing that stood out to me was that
(04:30):
way back in two thousand and six, they didn't protect
the victim's identity like they do today. I mean, this
kid's first name and last name, fourteen year old kid,
mind you, his name was everywhere when all of this
came out in the media, which is very strange these days.
(04:52):
Usually they'll use initials, they'll give an age, but there's
no way that the media is going to report the
name of a victim. A lot of people say that
revictimizes the person. I think it also speaks to the
fact that even back then, well I would say, especially
back then when you were a guy and you were
(05:14):
fourteen and your teacher was twenty six, like in this case,
it didn't really look at you as a victim. It's
just facts. It's why I do this series. So getting
back to it, I'm not gonna use his full name
I'll just use his first name, and his first name
was Justin, And I'm going to tell you a little
bit about Justin. Now, Justin in two thousand and five,
(05:36):
and in two thousand and six, and even prior to that,
he lived with his grandmother, who was his legal guardian.
And she was also no stranger to education herself. She
had been a supervisor of education before her retirement, and
even after retiring, she still worked as a substitute teacher. Now,
(05:57):
in addition to that, she also took care of the
grounds in dig gardening in a large apartment complex in
the area, not because she had to, but because she
wanted to. Now, Justin had lived with his grandmother for
six years, since he was eight years old. This poor
lady was sixty eight years old when all of this
(06:19):
went down that she had to deal with sixty eight Now,
apparently Justin he didn't have an easy early childhood. It
was very unsettled. As a matter of fact, he stayed
with several different relatives before settling in with his grandmother.
And it's kind of surprising to me because when I
(06:42):
researched his family name, well, it was a very powerful
name in the Monroe County area. His father, as a
matter of fact, at one point was the most powerful
attorney in that county. Justin's mother and father, however, they
never got married. Apparently she got pregnant, she had Justin,
(07:05):
and I don't know, maybe they weren't in love or whatever,
but they never got married, and drug abuse plagued his father,
that high powered attorney, so much so that in nineteen
ninety seven, Justin's grandmother she files charges against Justin's dad, which,
by the way, that's her own biological son. She said
(07:28):
that he threatened to kill her, and she blamed drugs
for her son's demise. Probably pretty good and accurate description,
mayor of why he turned out the way he did
and was threatening to kill his own mother. This was
just shortly after her son had been accused by her
of stealing a five thousand dollars boat from her. And
(07:51):
that might not sound like much, but remember the timeframe.
That was way back in nineteen ninety seven. Five thousand
dollars gives you a nice boat. Surely after that, Justin's
dad life spiraled even more. He eventually lost his license
in the state of Kentucky to even practice law. So
(08:11):
let's get back to two thousand and five. And as
I said, this grandmother she knew the education system. She
also knew what would be considered appropriate and not so
appropriate when it came to teachers and students. And it
was in November of two thousand and five when she
became really suspicious. So shortly after Angela had left her
(08:37):
job at the school. Remember she got divorced, or she
filed for divorce, then she rescinded that, and shortly after
that she ended up leaving the teaching profession completely, just
quit her job. So shortly after that, Justin's grandmother started
hearing ramblings that Justin had had an affair with this
(08:59):
teacher comer. Now, initially, Grandma she chalked this up to
Justin lying to his friends because she was hearing a
lot of this from other kids that went to school
with Justin, and she's thinking, Eh, he's just trying to
become more popular at school. As I said, this is
a very pretty teacher, and so in her mind, he's
(09:21):
just trying to be a big man on campus. And
now that that teacher's not teaching there anymore, she can't
really defend herself to the other students. So that's what
she chalked it up to.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you
what happened in New York.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It cannot be as crazy as the case I told
you about yesterday in Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You know what, we should do a podcast about it,
and with that we did.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Crime War Weekly covers the crime news headlines that have
dominated the week.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
We cover trending crimes from all over the country and
even spread wrinkle in a few globally.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Simply by searching Crime Wire Weekly or clicking the link
in the description of this podcast. She just couldn't believe
the idea of this beautiful, married, twenty six year old
teacher with a son of her own incidentally having any
(10:29):
interest in her fourteen year old grandson. And these were
other kids saying it, and they lie right, or he
lied to them, whatever. But things would change when parents
would start to notice. They would also hear kind of
these ramblings going around that Justin is messing or did
(10:49):
mess around with this teacher. And then they would go
to basketball games and lo and behold, Angela would show
up and she would bring food to Justin these basketball games. Now,
one thing I had not mentioned was the size of Justin. Now,
he was only fourteen years old, but he certainly looked
(11:11):
like a grand man. He was actually six foot two
and two hundred pounds at fourteen years old. Now doesn't
excuse anything that was done here, but it's important for context,
and you'll see why ledter on. So at some point
in November of two thousand and five, his grandmother, she
has a conversation with one of Justin's more trusted friends,
(11:37):
and that friend he tells the grandmother that he knows
for a fact Justin's not lying about sleeping with this teacher.
She says, well, how do you know that for a fact,
And he tells Justin's grandmother that one day he listened
in on the telephone while Justin called Angelo to set
(11:57):
up one of these hookups, if you will, and he
asked her if she had taken her birth control. And
that was totally in an effort to prove to his
friend that what he was telling him was legit. All
of this was set up by Justin. So the grandmother
at this point, she starts digging in even deeper into
(12:20):
her grandson's emails, et cetera. Now, this is two thousand
and six. Texting wasn't a thing back then like it
is now. I mean, back in two thousand and six,
you had. It took like forty five minutes to text
a sentence in two thousand and six, because you had
to go through each individual key. And for example, if
(12:44):
it was the number one on your telephone, on your
on your cell phone back then your flip phone, if
you will, it would have ABCD and you'd have to
if you wanted that sentence or that word to start
with D, you would have to hit the one button
four nine and the D would pop up. Then you'd
have to go to the next letter. It was horrible.
(13:06):
So there wasn't texting really back then like there is now.
But there was emailing and a lot of it. And
she goes through her son's emails and she discovers that
Comer and her grandson had been having an affair. There
was just these emails weren't that blatant, but they were
(13:26):
enough to where you knew something was not right. She
also discovered that they were accomplishing this in a unique way.
So grandma. She had trouble sleeping. She suffered from insomnian
She would take medicine, sleeping medicine to help her go
to sleep. The problem was she would take it and
(13:46):
she'd wake up two hours later and then you know,
it was just a nightmare from there, trying to fall
back asleep. Now, her grandson knew she had a pattern
like this. He had memorized her pattern, so he would
wait until she popped that pill and then he would
tell his teacher, you can come on over to the
(14:07):
house and they would actually have sex in the house
while the grandmother was sleeping, and she would get out
of the house before the grandmother woke up. So she
has a conversation with Justin after discovering these emails, even
though they weren't one hundred percent clear of what I
just told you, that was the inference that you could draw.
(14:30):
She has that conversation and Justin tells her Luck, you're
being ridiculous. You're building this up in your head. Me
and Angela Comer were just friends, which she knew it
was BS, but regardless, She tells him, you need to
stay away from her from now on. And she tells him,
(14:52):
I'm gonna be watching in my radars up and I'm
gonna throw this bitch in jail basically if this can now.
Two weeks after that, she also files charges against Angela
because although she felt that she couldn't prove any sort
of sexual relationship was going on with her grandson and
(15:13):
Angela Comber, she felt like she could prove another law
in Kentucky, and that law is known as unlawful transaction
with a minor. And what that is in Layman's term,
it basically means that Comer was causing Justin, who is
a miner, to disobey his grandmother. She's coersing him into that,
(15:36):
and that's a law, or was a law then in
two thousand and six, So she files as charges. You
get a coordinate, et cetera. So all of this, everything
I've just told you thus far leads us to January
six of two thousand and six and Justin's grandmother she
(15:56):
confronts him again on this alleged of that he's having
with his teacher because another friend, one she really trusted,
one of Justin's friend his father actually goes to the
grandmother and he tells her that something is still going
on with Justin and Angela Comber, his now at this
(16:19):
time former teacher. So she has another conversation. Justin denies
everything as you would expect, but she tells Justin, if
I got to bolt these doors to this house when
I go to sleep, I'll do it now. Interestingly enough,
this conversation took place just a week before the courtdate
(16:42):
for that unlawful transaction charge that I just told you about.
So the pressure's on, I'm sure with Angela Comber anyway,
and the time is ticking. So Justin he kisses his
grandmother on the head. He tells her he loves her.
She goes to bed, and while she's asleep, he packs
up his clothes. He packs up his iPod, which I
(17:06):
didn't say iPad iPod. This is two thousand and six.
iPads didn't exist, but iPods did. It was just basically
like a think of it, like a cell phone that
didn't make calls. All it did was download music. So
he packs that up, and he also takes her purse.
He actually steals her purse. Now in her purse was
(17:27):
eight hundred dollars cash. He takes his pillows, he piles
them under his blanket, sort of Ferris Bueller style. If
you're from my time frame, you'll know what that means.
And he did that to make it appear as though
he was sleeping, and he leaves the house. So the
(17:47):
next morning, Grandma she wakes up and she needs to
make a run to the post office. She gotta get
some stamps whatever. Maybe she's meiling a package. She notices
her perse is not where she left it. She's searching
all over the house for this purse. Finally she can't
find it anywhere else, says, she goes into Justin's room
(18:11):
to look, and that's when she discovers Justin ain't there.
So at this point she calls the Tompkinsville Police Department
and they quickly figure out within just a very short
period of time that not only is Justin missing, but
Angela Comer is missing, along with Angela Comber's four year
(18:35):
old son. And they have a really good idea that
these people are no longer in the state of Kentucky,
and they contact the FBI. So the FBI gets involved
because there's a big suspicion they've crossed state lines. It
becomes a federal crime, right and the first thing the
FBI does is they search Justin's computer, which was left
(19:00):
behind because it wasn't a laptop, it was a desktop computer.
You couldn't bring that thing with you. These were big
bubble back monitors back in those days, and the computers
weighed a thousand pounds, so you aren't taking that with
you on any sort of trip or to make a
quick getaway. So they search his computer and it's not
(19:23):
long before what they find on it gives them a
pretty good indication that Justin and his teacher were headed
to It may already be in what was known as
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which that's right across the border, y'all,
(19:43):
from Laredo, Texas.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
In the sultry heat of Louisiana, where the Bayous whisper
secrets and the air heavy with the scent of magnolias,
a darkness lurked beneath the surface. Dereck Todd Lee was
a man whose charm masked a sinister reality. He was
a monster. Lee, a seemingly ordinary man with a disarming smile,
led a double life that would unravel in a series
(20:17):
of murders in the capital city of Baton Rouge and
the surrounding areas. As the first reports of disappearances and
murders began to surface, South Louisiana was thrust into a nightmare,
igniting a frantic search for answers. The true horror was
just beginning, and the hunt for a serial killer eventually
known by just three letters, would reveal not only the
(20:37):
depths of Derek Todd Lee's depravity, but also the resilience
of those most affected by his evil acts, the families
and the survivors. This is DTL.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
DTL can be found by Searching Unspeakable, a true crime
podcast by Kelly Jennings wherever you listen to podcasts, Episode
one dropping November three. So the plan for these two
was to cross the border into Mexico and get married
due to the lacks of marriage laws in the country,
(21:16):
I guess you can. You know, in Mexico you can
marry a fourteen year old when you're twenty six. They
also had keep in mind Comber's four year old some
with them. So the FBI they figure this out. They
contact the Mexican authorities and they asked them, Hey, we
need y'all to canvass the hotels all throughout the area
(21:38):
and lo and behold they find them in a hotel.
Justin his teacher, Angela Comer, as well as Comber's four
year old son. They're all taken into custody. They're actually
brought to Texas and then they are transported back to Kentucky. Now,
(21:59):
at the time, Comer is charged with felony custodial interference
because police determined that Justin did indeed go willingly with her.
Of course, they interviewed him and he he said, you know,
she didn't force me to go, So no kidnapping charge
was filed, and on January nineteenth of two thousand and six,
(22:23):
Comer is formally indicted by the state of Kentucky. Now,
when the indictment came out, the charges kind of changed.
She got indicted for two counts of third degree sadomy,
four counts of unlawful transaction with a minor, and one
count of custodial interference. So she goes to court and
(22:45):
she enters a plea of not guilty, which everybody enters
a not guilty plea in their initial court appearance. That's
when bond is set, et cetera. And you got nothing
to lose by entering a not guilty plea. At an arrayment,
she gets a fifty thousand dollars cash bond, which she
(23:06):
eventually does bond out of jail, and time passes, and
a lot of time actually passes, and she eventually cuts
a deal like they all do, right, she pleads guilty.
She does this on May tenth of two thousand and seven,
a year and a half later, and she sentenced to
(23:26):
ten years in jail after pleading guilty to just one
count of sodomy and she got five years for that count.
In one count of custudio interference which she gets an
additional five years for. Now at the time when all
that went down and she took that plea and got sentenced,
(23:47):
Justin at that time was only sixteen, and this was
a year and a half after all this went down.
She did also admit to having sex with Justin several
times in open court. Then a month later, Angela Comber
comes out with this absolutely wild claim and she claims
(24:08):
that she was kidnapped and she was forced to drive
to Mexico with this fourteen year old teen y'all a gunpoint.
She said that the student was allegedly trying to get
away from his horrible home life and was considering suicide,
so he called her. He's depressed. He says, hey, I'm
(24:30):
gonna kill myself, and she tells him, oh, well, I'm
gonna pick you up and i'm gonna take you to
the courthouse. She doesn't tell him that over the phone,
she said, because she was worried about what would happen.
So she inferred that she was gonna pick him up
and they were gonna run off together, which is why
he had all his ship packed. But really she was
(24:50):
gonna bring him to the courthouse. So she shows up, He
gets in the car, and that's when she tells him, look,
we're gonna go to the courthouse. This is her story, right,
But she said rather than do that, he reaches into
her glove compartment. He knew that she carried a gun
in her glove compartment, and so he pulls the gun out,
(25:11):
points it at her, and tells her to drive. She
said that she attempted to get away twice. She said
once at a gas station and another time that she
tried to get away. He allegedly busted a guitar over
her head. This is her story. She also said she
was going through a difficult time and she was drinking
(25:33):
a lot, and that everything she did with this fourteen
year old was totally out of character for her. Everybody
that knew her and knew that this would never occur
if she were in her right state of mind, et cetera.
She went on to say that she is pissed at
herself for pleading guilty and that the only reason that
(25:57):
she plagued guilty was she did it to avoid the
stress of a public trial. And something that I did
not tell you occurred between the time that she posted
bail in the time that she took that plea, which
totally blows all this you already know it's bullshit, but
blows it all out of the water is even when
(26:19):
this lady was out on bail, she was caught sending
two nude pictures to this kid out on bail for
this relationship with this kid, and she can't help herself.
She takes two new pictures and emails them to this kid.
So decision making is on full display here, right. So
(26:43):
she goes to jail and in twenty ten she petitions
to be released, and fortunately that petition was denied. Though
I'm a little bit surprised because if you think it's
bad now with female teachers and students. Back in twenty ten,
it was really bad when it came to them actually
(27:05):
having to pay a price for their crime. But she
does get denied, and from there what happened to her?
The trail kind of runs cold a little bit. She
was eventually released, I know that for a fact, and
she's out now. And the way that I know that
is she still has to register as a sex offender.
And it says that she was released. So did she
(27:29):
serve her full term? I doubt it, but she probably
served the majority of it. In her case, now her
name's changed. She is now Angela Pointer Poynteer, So maybe
she got remarried after she got out of jail. Who knows.
I know that she no longer lives in the state
(27:51):
of Kentucky. I think she lives in Florida. Not one
hundred percent sure on that, but there you have it.
Wild story. Now, Now what blew my mind about all this?
This is a lady that essentially, as she kidnapped this kid,
I mean, he's fourteen years old, she brings him and
makes it all the way to Mexico with her own
(28:15):
four year old kid in two and she did say
in an interview at one point with the newspaper that
you know, she feels horrible for this, and she hopes
that her then four year old kid doesn't remember, you know,
will block out the memory of all that. Doubt it,
but a really wild scenario. I've never seen one where
(28:40):
somebody actually got all the way out of the country
one of these teachers with a kid that they were
having a relationship with. But there you have it. Now.
I want to take a second to say, if you
are a Patreon member, thank you so much. Look, the
show would not exist without these Patreon members. I love you.
(29:01):
Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for supporting Exposed
scandalous spiles of the Elite Bonus episode is heading your
way very soon. I hope you check that out. And incidentally,
this week dropped the first episode of DTL. You should
have heard an advertisement for DTL during this episode. DTL is,
(29:26):
of course a series that I produce. It is like
no other unspeakable a true crime podcasts by Kelly Jennings.
Award winning podcast award winning host Kelly Jennings takes you
through the absolutely horrific story of Derek Todd Lee, a
serial killer from the state of Louisiana actually from my area.
(29:49):
So check that out. I'll link it in the description
of this podcast. And please consider leaving us a review
if you have not yet done, and so I can't
tell you how much that helps the show. You don't
even have to put a whole sentence in there. You
can just put great, and hopefully you want to leave
(30:10):
five stars, especially if you're listening on Apple Podcasts. I
don't know about the other podcast platforms, but I know
Apple does it, and it really pushes us up that feed.
I would be forever in your debt if you consider
doing that. And lastly, this is the first episode since Halloween,
so I want to wish y'all all hopefully you had
(30:32):
a fantastic and happy, safe Halloween. You know what I
did on Halloween, just incidentally, I went and watched Halloween,
the actual I think it was nineteen seventy six version,
the very first Halloween. I hadn't seen that since I
was a kid. I went and saw that on the
big screen. One of the theaters here in my local
(30:55):
area was actually showing it, and I had a ton
of people in there. I forgot how good that very
first Halloween was. That's what I did. But hopefully whatever
you did, it was safe and you had a lot
of fun. And until next time for exposed scandalous files
of the elite, I'm your host, Jim Chapman, much love,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders
Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders takes you back to 1983, when two teenagers were found murdered, execution-style, on a quiet Texas hill. What followed was decades of rumors, false leads, and a case that law enforcement could never seem to close. Now, veteran investigative journalist M. William Phelps reopens the file — uncovering new witnesses, hidden evidence, and a shocking web of deaths that may all be connected. Over nine gripping episodes, Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders unravels a story 42 years in the making… and asks the question: who’s really been hiding the truth?
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com