The Virginia school district that is still reeling from former football coach Travis Turner’s disappearance amid child pornography allegations has a history of staff members being accused of sex crimes.
Before Turner, 46, three other teachers or coaches in the Wise County Public School district had been accused of inappropriate conduct involving students — something one parent called a “culture” in the district.
“When there is this much abuse, it’s not just a few bad apples,” Stephen Murray, whose stepdaughter attends Union, said during a Wise County school board meeting in January, according to the New York Post. “It is a culture. The fish rots from the head down.”
He added, “This is just the cases that have been reported and charged.”
Turner disappeared on November 20, 2025, and was last seen by his family members as he walked into the woods behind his house. Shortly after, authorities charged him with five counts of child pornography and five counts of using a computer to solicit a minor.
Just months before, in August 2025, Coeburn Middle School teacher Tyler Jay Tibbs was charged with three counts of carnal knowledge and with taking indecent liberties with a child by a person in a supervisory relationship. A carnal knowledge charge is typically for someone accused of having sex with a minor aged 13 to 15. Tibbs, 28, was released on $25,000 bond, according to WCYB, and is due in court on April 29.
In 2023, Timothy Lee Meador, another Union coach, pleaded guilty to charges of child solicitation and indecent liberties. He spent one year in prison.
In 2020, Dalton Matthew Bates, band leader at LF Addington Middle School and Union High School, was hit with 20 counts of possessing child pornography. He later pleaded guilty to 10 counts and was charged with 36 months in prison for each, serving the sentences concurrently and being given time served, meaning he was released shortly after confessing.
As authorities continue searching for Turner, who has since been replaced as Union football coach, parents have grown frustrated over the investigation and a lack of answers.
Murray told the Daily Mail earlier this month that he doesn’t buy the speculation that Turner may be dead.
“Everyone knows that he’s alive,” he said. “No one believes that he took his own life, and the reason is because he’s too much of a coward and he thinks too highly of himself to take his own life.”
Murray added, “People [think] he liked himself too much. There’s no way that this brought him to suicide. They think he ran for it.”
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