Crossing the line

Even as she was establishing a teaching career in a suburb of Tampa, Debra Beasley was also starting a family with a man she’d dated for five years.

Debra Lafave: He had a great sense of humor and he was charming.  He took me on trips—flowers all the time, romantic dates.  It was just like my dream come true.

She married Owen Lafave in 2003, just after her first year of teaching. They made a great-looking couple. The wedding photographer used them in his advertising.  But, as at so many other times in Debra’s life, things were not what they appeared to be.

Matt Lauer, NBC News: Let me talk and it’s obviously a little delicate. Let me talk about sex in your relationship with Owen, your husband.  He said that it was volatile.  That it began very good and that basically soon after that it ceased.  Is that how you remember it?

Lafave: The "very good" part was probably a stretch.  I still had issues with even having sex period because of my rape.  Flashbacks.  And I just associated sex with—with sin and—and filth.  So we really didn’t have that much sex. 

Lauer: So as you started your second year of teaching at Greco Middle School was your marriage in good shape?  Or was it on the rocks?

Lafave: It was great.  We had a great friendship. We did everything together and sex really wasn’t a big issue  ironically.

Sex wasn’t a big issue—yet.  But depression was.  Although Debra was on medication, she still had major bouts of depression.

Lafave: Sometimes it would be one day.  Sometimes it would be two days.  Other times it would be a week of the deep depression.

Lauer: And what were they like?

Lafave: They consisted of laying on the couch, not wanting to get up or go shower, brush my teeth.  I didn’t feel like doing anything at all, including cleaning, cooking.  I would drink.  I would drink a lot.

She had her “up” days too—really up.  Her husband and colleagues later described to investigators how at times Debra talked a mile a minute.  She wore revealing clothing. Her energy and her looks drew students to her like a magnet.

Lauer: There were a lot of the kids calling you the "hot teacher" and some people were starting to kinda look at you out of the side of their eye a little bit and wonder what was goin’ on with Debbie Beasley.

Lafave: I have definitely found that out.

Lauer: Yeah.  And you weren’t aware of that?

Lafave: At the time I was so oblivious to everything.  I was in a completely different world.

Lauer: Clearly popular with the boys. Is that the way you remember it?

Lafave: I always felt that my little girl students just adore me.

Meeting the boy
Whether or not she was really oblivious to her own charms, Debra had caught the eye of many an adolescent boy at school. One boy in particular... Even though he was not in her class.

Lauer: How did you first meet him?

Lafave:  One of my good friends coached the football team.  And I would come out to support him. At that point the student—became aware of my presence, telling me hello—just being you know waving, being silly.

He was a big kid, tall and athletic.

Lauer: At this point you were 23  and he would have been 14.

Lafave: Um-hm (affirms).

Lauer: And when he would come up and say, “Hi,” was as there anything in you that said—“He seems nice,” or "he’s kinda cute"? Was there an attraction?

Lafave:     Well, more or less from an afar like him and his teammates were on the field.  And they would scream, “Hey Miss Beasley!”  And no at that time it didn’t even occur to me that, “Hey, he’s cool" or "Hey he’s a nice guy.”

Lauer:   How did the friendship develop then?

Lafave: I chaperoned a field trip and he happened to be in my group. 

It was a class trip to Sea World, near the end of the school year in 2004, a time when Debra says her mood swings had become intense.  She and the student talked and got to know each other.  But she says it didn’t amount to much—after all, her husband Owen also went on the trip.

Lauer:  So how did we go from this kind of innocent Sea World trip, field trip with your husband right there and the student there to something more?      Connect the dots for me.

Lafave: That’s what I want to know.  That’s why things are so bizarre in my mind because it did go from something so innocent to "bam."

Lauer: Well let me stop you for a second.  You should know more than he would know, I imagine, how these dots got connected.  So what was it?  I mean what created this bond between the two of you?

Lafave: I think he just became very flirtatious and you gotta remember that at that period in my time—or in my life I didn’t feel like an adult.  I was crashing fast. 

Lauer: I would imagine there are parents watching right now Debbie and—

Lafave: Yeah.

Lauer:  They’re saying, “Wait a minute.  She just said that he became very flirtatious.”

Lafave:     Um-hm (affirms).

Lauer:   You know (a) Is she blaming him for how this started?  So the answer to that is?

Lafave:     No.

Lauer: And (b) She was the older one.

Lafave:  Absolutely.

Lauer: She was the teacher.  She was the role model.

Lafave: I did.  I crossed the line that never should’ve been crossed.

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