"She felt her biological clock ticking"

Mine's digital. It never makes a sound nor do I feel it. I only feel SUVs impacting me at 40 mph. As for "filling that void," well, that's one way to put it.

Prosecutor: Teacher had sex with teen after befriending his family
By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

FORT WORTH — A former Southlake elementary school teacher repeatedly performed sex acts on a Carroll High School student last spring after she had befriended his family, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

The teacher, Michelle Sewell, even took ski trips with the family, went to restaurants and movies and attended church with the family before the assaults happened, Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Steve Jumes said.

“She told a friend that, I don’t need a boyfriend, (the teen-ager) fills that void,” said Jumes in his opening statement to a Tarrant County jury Wednesday morning in the start of Sewell’s sexual assault trial.

Sewell, 28, is charged with one count of sexual assault of a child and three counts of indecency with a child which are all felony crimes. If convicted, the former Durham Elementary School teacher faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each count.

Her attorney, Bob Hinton, entered a plea of not guilty on each of the counts Wednesday morning in Criminal District Court No. 372.

Sewell has denied any inappropriate relationships with the student, an arrest affidavit states.

But on Wednesday morning, Jumes told jurors that the relationship was more than what she called a brother-sister bond.

“She felt her biological clock ticking,” Jumes said. “He was filling that void.”

But Hinton called the boy a liar who Sewell was trying to counsel as a friend of the family.

“He hated his father, and he had an overbearing mother,” Hinton told jurors in his opening remarks. “He started this story about a relationship with a teacher he cares for, and he hasn’t been able to get out of it. My heart goes out to him because he’s confused young man.”

Sewell became acquainted with the boy’s family in 2000, joining them at church, on vacation and at dinners, Grapevine police said. She became acquainted with them because she was the elementary teacher for the sister of the boy, prosecutors said.

Her arrest affidavit gave this account:

Sewell told Carroll school officials that she and the boy had been to ballgames and movies alone. She gave the family a key to her Grapevine apartment, and the boy’s mother often called and asked Sewell to take him places. He often hugged her because they had a brother-sister relationship.

Sewell later denied to school officials that she gave the boy a key to her apartment, the affidavit states. But the boy’s father told police that he found that his son did have Sewell’s key.

School officials and later police began an investigation last March when a friend told another Durham teacher about the relationship Sewell was having with the 16-year-old.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14160754.htm