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Affair With Teacher Leads to
Slaying March 16, 2007
By Duncan Mansfield
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - In a tragic
twist to a familiar story, a teenager who had sex with his married
30-year-old teacher was fatally shot outside the woman's home, and
authorities have charged the woman's husband.
"You see all this stuff with
teachers involved with their students. It just comes up time after
time on the national news," said Norman McLean, father of suspect
Eric McLean. But this time, he said, someone "actually died over
it."
McLean's wife, Erin, had completed
half of a one-year teaching internship at West High School, where
she met the 18-year-old Sean Powell last fall.
Powell's mother, who gave him up
for adoption a dozen years ago but re-established contact in 2005,
said her son acknowledged having an affair with a teacher.
"He wouldn't let me answer my cell
phone," Debra Flynn recalled. "I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Well, Mom,
I'm going out with this girl.' I said, 'So what?' He said, 'She is a
counselor at school.' I said, 'Oh, my God, Sean.'"
Flynn, whose son sometimes stayed
at her home in Nashville, said she later found text messages on her
phone. "Come home. Baby, I love you. You are beautiful," they said.
She believes Erin McLean preyed on her son.
"These teachers are feasting on our
children in school and something has to be done," Flynn said.
Powell "was a great kid, full of
life," Flynn said. He had taught himself to play guitar and just
received his driver's license. His adoptive parents, Scarlett and
Jack Powell, had just bought him a car.
But he left school on Nov. 20 and
did not return. School officials refuse to explain, citing privacy
laws. Flynn said her son had a substance-abuse problem and went to
rehab for less than a month.
Norman McLean described his son,
one of his eight children, as "an excellent person," who was not
violent, but he acknowledged that his son "had a lot of burden on
him for months now," referring to his wife's affair.
"Now, I am only talking about
myself. But I can personally only take so much," Norman McLean said.
"Everybody has a breaking point and there is only so much you can
endure before you get to that place ... where you lose control."
Norman McLean said his son, once a
percussionist in the University of Tennessee marching band, put his
own academic career on hold to support his family while his wife of
11 years pursued a graduate teaching degree from the University of
Tennessee. He has worked as a pizza deliveryman while taking classes
at the university.
Eric McLean is one semester short
of completing a bachelor's degree in music education. A popular
performer in local rock 'n' roll bands, he hoped to become a school
band director.
On the evening of March 10, McLean
called police to say an intruder was at the couple's home. About 7
minutes later, Erin McLean called back to say her husband had just
shot Powell outside in the boy's car.
Eric McLean fled in his car, which
was later found at the high school. McLean was arrested Sunday,
walking along railroad tracks about 6 miles away, still carrying the
suspected murder weapon, a shotgun.
Sean Powell was buried Thursday
after a funeral attended by more than 150 friends and former
classmates.
"I didn't color any rosy pictures,"
said the Rev. Lee Wallace, who officiated. "I said, Sean, like
myself, is not perfect. He was a boy who had hopes and dreams and
goals in life, like everybody else, and those were cut short."
Erin McLean has moved in with
relatives in Nashville with the couple's two young sons, ages 11 and
7. She has not been charged with any wrongdoing. Police say she has
hired a lawyer but could not provide a name.
The attorney for Eric McLean, 31,
acknowledges that McLean killed Powell. "So this trial is going to
be about what really did happen and why _ not who," attorney Bruce
Poston said.
Poston said McLean is in a "state
of shock. Like watching a deer caught in the headlights. Literally
wondering, 'Have I made a decision that will ruin the rest of my
life as well as others?'"
(A previous version of this story
incorrectly spelled McLean as McClean; this version corrects it.)
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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