Alabama teacher charged in student sex, murder plot

A rural high school teacher accused of having sex with at least four male students and involving at least one of them in a plot to kill her husband was released Thursday from Clarke County Jail on bond.

The Coffeeville High School teacher, Sharon Linton Rutherford, 30, who had been in jail since her arrest April 11, has a preliminary hearing set May 11 in Clarke County Circuit Court.

Initial charges included solicitation of murder, first-degree rape, second-degree sexual abuse and two counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes. But the DA?s office withdrew the second-degree sexual abuse charge Thursday because the victim’s initials in the court document were incorrect, Walker said.

“It’s premature at this stage to be focusing on what the defendant is actually charged with,” Walker said. He said the charges may change before the case reaches trial.

At a hearing Thursday on several defense motions, Rutherford’s attorney, Richard D. Jensen of Foley, asked a judge to dismiss all the charges. District Court Judge William Kimbrough delayed any ruling until the May 11 preliminary hearing.

In a court filing, Jensen said Rutherford had been arrested and charged “based upon improperly completed depositions which cite facts which are blatantly incorrect and fail to properly allege the offense, the offense date, and the parties involved.”

“We categorically deny that she slept with a student,” Jensen said in an interview after the hearing.

Jensen claims the prosecution’s case is built on “copycat allegations” by the alleged victims, ages 19, 17 and two others younger than 16.

“There’s absolutely no evidence of a murder plot,” Jensen insisted.

He said the “murder plot” was based on “a joking comment made by an alleged victim to the detective.”

The teacher’s husband, James Rutherford, who was not harmed, was a physical education teacher at Coffeeville High last year, but took a new job in McIntosh, in southern Washington County.