THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 4, 1995 TAG: 9508040459
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Police said they are reviewing hundreds of videotapes, found at the home of a Wilson High School teacher, showing female students undressing in a locker room.
Some of the tapes date to 1987, police say.
Investigators are trying to identify the victims of the secret videotaping.
John W. Crute, 45, a popular teacher and track coach at Wilson, was arrested Tuesday on charges of producing sexually explicit pictures of a minor, a felony, and unlawful filming or photographing of a minor. Police say that other charges are pending.
The Portsmouth school system has placed Crute on administrative leave.
Dozens of parents have called police since Crute's arrest to inquire whether their daughters appear on the tapes.
``Some of the kids are just devastated by this,'' said a Portsmouth detective. ``He was well-respected by the students.''
Police believe that Crute, who coached the girls track team at Wilson, drilled a hole in the wall of a storage room next to the female students' locker room. He placed a video camera at the hole, police said, then turned the camera on as girls entered the locker room and turned it off when they left.
Police believe that Crute was able to make videotapes undetected this way for at least eight years. It is possible that hundreds of female students were filmed.
Crute's scheme was uncovered last weekend by a police liaison officer who discovered the video camera. The tape recovered from the camera showed a 15-year-old student who had been videotaped as she undressed during the last weekend of July.
After the discovery of the camera, police on Monday evening searched the residence that Crute shares with his parents in the 400 block of Sussex Drive, in the Water View section of the city.
According to a search warrant on file in Portsmouth Circuit Court, police found what amounted to an in-home editing laboratory and screening room when they raided Crute's residence.
They confiscated numerous boxes containing videotapes as well as several boxes of photographic negatives. They also took three videotape machines, a camcorder, a 35mm camera, a television set and a slide viewer.
One investigator said that some tapes had been editing by splicing pieces together to combine similar views of different students.
Police have released no age range of girls shown in the tapes. Nor would they speculate whether the tapes were distributed or shared them with anyone. ILLUSTRATION: John W. Crute, 45, Wilson High teacher and track coach, is
accused of secretly videotaping female students in the locker room.
KEYWORDS: ARREST TEACHER COACH SEX CRIME by CNB