What was this guy thinking?

This dude, Tad Cummins, is 50 years old and worked as a school teacher in Tennessee. He was one of those fanatical Christians, who even was part of a band that sings about Jesus.

He was married, and his wife, shown below, looks around his age.




He had a student named Elizabeth Thomas, who had a "troubled past". She was 15, and apparently lived with her father. It is unclear where her mother is, or if she's even still alive.




Cummins developed a relationship with the girl, and the two started messing around.

Up to this point, it's fairly standard pedo teacher stuff, but here's where it gets weird...

On January 23, a 12-year-old student walked into Cummins' classroom and saw him passionately kissing Elizabeth. Strangely, the student actually confronted him about this later that day, and Cummins made excuses, rambling that he loved his wife, and that Elizabeth was just a troubled girl he took to church along with his wife sometimes.

The student reported this to the school. A week later, the poilce got involved. I guess he had Elizabeth rehearse a story, because she told them a pretty convincing-sounding tale that another girl had just picked on her in the bathroom, and she was hysterical. She explained the "kissing" as Cummins simply holding her hands near her mouth to calm her down, and that no kiss took place. She said that the other student was confused by that and saw it as a kiss.

Without anything more to go on, Cummins was told to stay away from Elizabeth going forward.

You'd think it would be over at that point, right?

No. Just 2 days later, the idiot had her right back in his classroom, albeit with other students. Given he committed this violation, the school district suspended him.

Then, on March 13, he told his wife he needed the car for a job interview while she was at work. He actually had no job interview, but instead drove to meet Elizabeth at a Shoney's (restaurant in the south, similar to Denny's) and drove off with her.

In preparation for this journey, Cummins took a $4500 loan under false pretenses, left a note for his wife that he left "to clear his head" and not to call police, and even bought Cialis for his limp dick.

He also checked into chain motels under his own name (lol), but was lucky in that the clerks hadn't heard about this rapidly-publicized story yet.

Finally he realized he couldn't do that anymore, and drove all the way to California, and rented some cabin in a remote area.

He had told the cabin owner that he was 44, the girl with him was 22, and they were recently married. He also provided a fake name. However, something seemed strange about the way the two interacted, and the cabin owner called police, who realized who they actually were.

They feared he was armed (Cummins apparently was also a gun fanatic), so they devised a plan to draw him out. The owner knocked on the door and said he needed help building a rock wall, and Cummins voluntarily went outside unarmed, thinking it was just a harmless chore. Police grabbed him at that point.

Elizabeth was still somewhat loyal to him, insisting they hadn't done anything sexual, but eventually relented and admitted they did.

They apparently can't charge him with kidnapping, because she clearly went willingly. However, they are charging him with transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of sexual intercourse, so he's gonna see some time in prison.

What did he think he was going to accomplish? Did he really believe he could just run off with a 15-year-old and $4500 to his name, and live happily ever after?

Here is the criminal complaint, describing everything. It's not too long.

 

View on scribd here: https://www.scribd.com/doc/345856302/