Graphic details emerge in sex crimes case against Ocean Springs Middle substitute teacher

The parents of three Ocean Springs Middle School students want the school district and others to pay, accusing them of failing to protect the students from criminal acts by substitute teacher Keshawn Belcher, according to court filings.

The parents outline the allegations against Belcher in three individual lawsuits filed against Belcher, the school district, the temporary employment agency Kelly Services, Inc., and other unnamed defendants.

The school district has a contract with Kelly Services, Inc., to hire substitute teachers at Mississippi Coast schools. Kelly Services sent Belcher to work as a substitute teacher at Ocean Springs Middle School for five days in April 2023, during which time he allegedly committed crimes against students.

The parents ask for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in three individual lawsuits filed in state court.

“You send kids to school expecting them to be able to develop into healthy adults and then something like this happens over sheer negligence,” said Donald Medley, the Hattiesburg attorney representing the three families. “If they had done their due diligence, this could have been avoided.”

Belcher has remained jailed in Jackson County since his arrest in April 2023 on felony charges of child exploitation and molestation involving the Ocean Springs students. The case is pending grand jury review for indictments that could include additional allegations of criminal wrongdoing.

In the lawsuits, the parents accuse the school district and Kelly Services of negligence in hiring, failure to investigate and prosecute misconduct, and failure to properly train and hire qualified people to monitor teacher activities.

They accuse Belcher of false imprisonment, harassment, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and allege that Belcher’s actions “exceeded all bounds of decency and is far beyond what is tolerated in a civilized society.”

The Sun Herald is not identifying the parents who filed the lawsuits to protect the identity of the minor students. The Sun Herald does not identify victims of sex crimes.

Additional lawsuits for parents of other victimized students are expected to be filed later on.

A lawsuit represents one side of a a story. Neither Belcher, the school district, nor Kelly Services has responded to the allegations against them.

New details emerge

After his arrest, Ocean Springs police said Belcher allegedly used Snapchat to communicate with students and send them inappropriate sexual content and videos of himself.

New details about Belcher’s actions toward students in Ocean Springs and elsewhere in South Mississippi surfaced in court filings and other records obtained by the Sun Herald since then.

The Ocean Springs Middle School lawsuits involved three students: two girls and one boy.

In one case, a then 13-year-old Ocean Springs Middle School student was allegedly held against her will and molested by Belcher after he summoned her to his classroom on the premise that he was going to help her with an assignment.

When the girl got there, Belcher was the only person in the room and blocked the girl from leaving when he grabbed her face and started kissing her and touching her body inappropriately, the records say

The girl said she couldn’t get away because Belcher “held her in his grip,” the lawsuit says.

When the school bell rang and momentarily distracted Belcher, the girl managed to escape his grasp and run out of the classroom, the records say. The girl then reported what had happened to her parents and the school.

In a separate incident, Belcher is accused of sending inappropriate text messages to a then-12-year-old student at Ocean Springs Middle School. He later messaged her on Snapchat and social media, asking if he could stop by her home to watch TV with her, but the girl’s parents wouldn’t allow it.

Subsequently, the records say Belcher made sexual remarks to the girl at school and asked her to perform oral sex on him.

In a third incident, this time involving a then 14-year-old Ocean Springs Middle School student, Belcher is accused of sending inappropriate messages over Snapchat to the young boy.

In one exchange, for example, Belcher sent the boy a text saying that he was horny before following that up with an image of himself naked and then a video of himself masturbating, the records say.

The young boy reported what had happened to his father, who reported the incident to Ocean Springs police.

A prior run-in, this time in Gulfport

In addition to the incidents at the Ocean Springs school, Belcher had encountered problems before while working as a substitute teacher in the Gulfport School District.

That case involved an incident with students while Belcher served as a substitute teacher at North Gulfport Middle School in September 2022.

Gulfport police responded to the school after the principal and assistant principal learned from a student that Belcher had just exchanged cell phones with students in a class he was teaching so he could look through the phones. In exchange, the report said, Belcher gave the students his phone and told them they could look through his pictures.

In Belcher’s camera roll on the phone, the students found nude pictures of Belcher.

When Gulfport police went to the school, an officer noticed a knife clip on one of Belcher’s pants pockets. When he confronted Belcher about it, Belcher pulled a knife out of his pocket and gave it to the officer.

The police officer asked Belcher if he had any other knives on him, and Belcher pulled a second knife out of a second pocket and handed it to an officer.

The Gulfport police officer then asked Belcher again if he had any other knives on him.

Belcher told the officer only then that he had a third knife attached to his lower left ankle. The officer searched Belcher for any additional weapons but couldn’t find any others, the report said.

Afterward, the police officer remained in the principal’s office while the principal asked Belcher about the cellphone exchange with students.

Belcher told the students they could look through his pictures after they started asking him questions like whether he was married and had a family.

The officer then interviewed a student who reported seeing a nude picture of Belcher on his phone. The student told police she and other students saw the picture of Belcher’s genitalia while scrolling through images on his phone.

The student said she and others found the pictures by scrolling through Belcher’s camera roll.

Belcher later told police that he didn’t think the students would scroll that far back on his camera phone and find the nude pictures of himself and others of himself and a female engaged in sex on the camera roll.

Gulfport police found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing regarding the cellphone incident, and the principal did not wish to pursue a weapons charge against Belcher for the knives he had on him at the school.