32-year-old woman accused of posing as a homeless teen to enroll in high school

Lauren Holter
An upstate New York woman was arrested for posing as a teenager to attend classes. (Photo: Thomas Imo/Photothek via Getty Images)
An upstate New York woman was arrested for posing as a teenager to attend classes. (Photo: Thomas Imo/Photothek via Getty Images)

Investigators are stumped as to why a 32-year-old woman allegedly pretended to be a homeless teenager to enroll in an upstate New York high school.

Michaelann Goodrich was arrested last week for allegedly posing as a 15-year-old named Riley Madison and attending classes in the Cairo-Durham School District, as Albany, N.Y., news station WNYT reports.

“She could’ve gone in numerous different ways to obtain a degree, and we actually found out through the investigation and that she has a high school diploma,” Joel Rowell, Greene County Sheriff’s Department senior investigator, told WNYT. “So that just leads to our investigation to try to figure out what exactly her motive was for attending school.”

Goodrich attended high school classes for only one day before the winter break, including riding the bus to and from the campus in Cairo, N.Y., near Albany, Cairo-Durham High School District Superintendent Anthony Taibi told NBC New York. She now faces charges of offering a false instrument for filing, falsifying business records and criminal trespassing.

Taibi told WNYT that Goodrich was immediately admitted because federal law requires schools to accept homeless teens. School administrators felt something was off, though, and contacted the police. Yahoo Lifestyle has reached out to Taibi for further comment but has not yet received a response.

“It was kind of unnerving. It could’ve been anybody, you know. You hear about school shootings and all that — could’ve been anybody coming in here trying to get plans of the school,” Joshua Mack, who has a daughter in the school district, told WNYT. “I mean obviously that wasn’t the case, but it could’ve been.”

A similar incident happened in Texas in 2014, when a 34-year-old woman was accused of enrolling in high school by posing as a teenager, as CBS News reports. It remains unclear why either woman hid their true identity to enroll.

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