LAQUEY, Mo. – A Missouri teacher is facing criminal charges after she was accused of having sex with a 16-year-old male while other students served as “lookouts.” The teacher fled to Texas where she was taken into custody. The teen’s father is also facing a felony charge for condoning the illicit relationship, according to authorities.
Hailey Clifton-Carmack, 26, was a math teacher at Laquey High School in Laquey, Missouri. She was arrested in Garden Ridge, Texas, on Friday after she “was suspected of fleeing the State of Missouri” to avoid arrest warrants, according to the Garden Ridge Police Department in Texas.
Police said the arrest warrant included charges of “Family Offense – Endangering Welfare Child, Statutory Rape 2nd degree, Sexual Contact with Student and Child Molestation 4th – Child.”
Clifton-Carmack was booked at the Comal County Jail and awaits extradition back to Missouri, authorities said.
The investigation began Dec. 7, 2023, when a fellow student reported the alleged improper relationship to the school’s resource officer, who immediately contacted the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department, according to court documents, the New York Post reported.
During an interview with investigators, the witness showed photographs of his classmate with sex-related scratches on his back. The witness said the “scratches were from Hailey after the confidential victim had sex with her” in the “driveway” of the witness’s residence.
Laquey High School math teacher Hailey Clifton-Carmack, 26, was arrested in Garden Ridge, Texas, on Friday.
The witness said Clifton-Carmack — a recently divorced mother of two — would often wear “tight or low-cut shirts” to show off her “headlights” and “tight leggings that ‘showed off her camel toe,’” according to court documents.
A “camel toe” is reference to the female leggings being so tight that it allows others to visually see the outline of the lips of a woman’s vagina.
The witness claimed the math teacher had previously been in trouble with school administration for “being too close with students.” The person also said the reason “her divorce was pushed through” was due to her sexual relationship with the victim, and that “Hailey had wanted a divorce due to her husband only wanting to ‘do butt stuff,’” the court document revealed.
On Dec. 8, 2023, detectives confronted Clifton-Carmack with the allegations, to which she denied. Investigators confiscated the woman’s cell phone and later obtained a search warrant for its contents.
On Dec. 22, 2023, detectives discovered text messages that demonstrated the teacher had an ongoing relationship with the 16-year-old student, according to court documents.
Sometime around Dec. 23, Clifton-Carmack left Missouri to visit family in Texas, the New York Post reported.
On Jan. 3, 2024, police interviewed “individuals living at the residence that Hailey was previously living at” in Missouri. They said she had “moved to Texas to live with her family down there” and “were not sure if she was going to return.”
As a result, an arrest warrant was issued for Clifton-Carmack charging her with the sex-related crimes.
On Friday, she was picked up in Texas on the $250,000 arrest warrant and booked into jail in Comal County.
In a statement to ABC 17, the district’s superintendent, Kent Stoumbaugh, said Clifton-Carmack had not been on school grounds since the allegations first became known.
The superintendent said the district does not expect Clifton-Carmack’s return. (Google Street View)
“The alleged misconduct is inexcusable and does not meet the professional standards for district employees. The district took immediate action once we were aware of this situation,” Stoumbaugh wrote.
“The employee has not been in the district since December 8, 2023, and we do not anticipate her return.”
Stoumbaugh said this was Clifton-Carmack’s first job as a teacher. She had been at the school for about 18 months.
Meanwhile, the teen-victim’s father, Mark Creighton, has found himself in criminal trouble since he reportedly knew of the ongoing sexual relationship and apparently did nothing to discourage it. He was arrested on Thursday on charges of endangering the welfare of a child.
The boy’s father, Mark Creighton, was arrested on Thursday on charges of endangering the welfare of a child. (Mark Creighton / Facebook)
Creighton “knew of the relationship of his minor child and the 26-year-old teacher, and instead of reporting the information, he continued to cover for them and allowed the relationship to continue” and “even allowed Hailey to come over to his residence and see the victim while he was present,” prosecutors said.
At one point Creighton reportedly told another person that his son and Clifton-Carmack “are going to do it behind my back, so I may as well let it happen.”
Creighton was booked into jail and is being held on a $50,000 bond.
