A South Carolina man accused of attempting to abduct a child from a Whitley County school late last week had a not-guilty plea entered on his behalf Tuesday morning.
Willie O. Bethea, 37, of Latta, South Carolina, appeared via video call in Whitley District Court for arraignment on Tuesday, where Judge Cathy Prewitt entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf to charges of attempted kidnapping of a minor, first–degree criminal trespassing, operating a motor vehicle on a suspended or revoked operator’s license and first–degree persistent felony offender.
According to a release from Kentucky State Police Public Affairs Officer Trooper Scottie Pennington, sometime Friday afternoon, Bethea allegedly tried to lure a child from a playground and into his vehicle at Whitley County Intermediate School. He was confronted by school officials and quickly fled the scene.
He was later located at Walmart in Corbin and taken into custody without incident.
The incident caused area schools throughout the county to initiate a soft lockdown, though some of the messages sent out from one school district caused confusion as the situation was still ongoing.
At approximately 2:15 p.m. Friday, Corbin Independent Schools sent out an all-call to parents that the school district had been placed on a soft lockdown. The message sent to parents read, in part: “This precautionary measure was taken after Kentucky State Police reported an attempted abduction of a student at Williamsburg Elementary. The suspect was last seen traveling north on I-75, prompting heightened alert across our schools.”
However, officials at Williamsburg Independent School soon released their own statement, which noted that the incident had not occurred at their school district.
“False information was shared from a local school district. The following message was communicated and it is not true: ‘KY State Police reported an attempted abduction of a student at Williamsburg Elementary. The suspect was last seen traveling North on I-75 prompting alerts for local schools.’”
“This information is incorrect,” the statement went on to say. “Williamsburg School Resource Officers were alerted of a situation where a visitor interacted with a student on a playground of another school district earlier this morning. Once they received this information, Williamsburg Independent Schools prompted all students to come back inside the building. All exterior doors were checked for security, school and district Administrators monitored the hallways, doors, etc., and no students were allowed outside of the building until local law enforcement assured our SRO’s that the situation was handled and our students were in no harm. At no time during the day was any student or staff member at Williamsburg City School in danger or threatened. We were not involved in this situation at all.”
In the hours following news of Bethea’s arrest, social media was also abuzz with commentors on various stories regarding the incident. One commenter, whose Facebook profile name was listed as Aaliyah Shonte, claimed to be Bethea’s significant other and stated that his arrest was “a misunderstanding.”
“It was my child. That’s my boyfriend. He went to the school to enroll my child in school there. They got the wrong idea of him,” the post said. “He will NEVER hurt a child.”
Judge Prewitt scheduled a preliminary hearing in Bethea’s case for Sept. 10 at 10 a.m.
Bethea currently remains jailed in the Whitley County Detention Center in lieu of a $500,000 cash bond.
