Police searching teacher and boy, 13, say pair may have fled to Mexico
OMAHA, Neb. -- A female teacher and a 13-year-old boy believed to be on the run may have crossed the California border into Mexico, a police investigator said Friday.
Paul Schwarz of the Lexington Police Department in Nebraska said the white Pontiac owned by 25-year-old Kelsey Peterson crossed into Mexico around 11 p.m. on Tuesday.
Peterson, a sixth-grade math teacher and basketball coach at Lexington Middle School, fled with the boy after police began investigating whether the pair had an intimate relationship, authorities said.
Authorities believed the two were traveling in Peterson's car, and police nationwide and the FBI were notified about them. Court documents said the boy was last seen Oct. 26.
A judge issued an arrest warrant Monday charging Peterson with kidnapping, child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The boy, 13-year-old Fernando Rodriguez, was an eighth-grader at the school, but district Superintendent Todd Chessmore said he wasn't sure whether Peterson had been his teacher.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people who may be victims of sex crimes, but the boy's name has been widely publicized as police search for him.
According to court documents, Fernando's aunt Laura Rodriguez told police that she talked to her nephew by phone after he disappeared, and he asked her whether a visa or passport was required to travel to Mexico.
Schwarz would not say where the car crossed the border. He said the pair had not been spotted in Mexico.
FBI spokeswoman Carrie Sawicki in Omaha said that under standard procedure, authorities would work with FBI officials in Mexico as well as Mexican authorities. She referred further questions to Dawson County Attorney Elizabeth Waterman, who did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday.
Court documents showed authorities had recovered several e-mails and letters in which Peterson and the boy professed their affection for one another.
In letters, the boy called Peterson his "Baby Gurl" and said their relationship was "just not about the sex but that it was pretty good," according to the court documents.
Peterson's school-issued laptop contained letters to the student, including one from April saying she loved him, thought he loved her, was "100 percent faithful" to him and would always be faithful, the court documents state.
Laura Rodriguez told KRVN-AM in Lexington that the family believed Peterson gave the boy a cell phone without his family's knowledge so she could reach him more easily.
Lexington, a farming and meatpacking town of about 10,000, is about 220 miles west of Omaha in central Nebraska.