Photo: Gaines County Sheriff’s Office
The superintendent of a Texas high school is behind bars after students accidentally found a recording device hidden in the girls locker room.
Joshua Neil Goen, 43, was arrested Monday (December 5) on charges of invasive visual recording, a state felony, according to KAMC. Gaines County sheriff's deputies were sent to Seagraves High School in the mid-November after a student reported the recording device found in the visiting girls locker room after a basketball game.
A statement from Hale Center ISD Superintendent Steven Pyburn revealed the recording device was taken from the visiting girls locker room by a student who thought it was a phone charger left behind by one of her teammates. The next day, an 8th grade student found the device and turned it over to school officials.
An investigation, including the reviewing of Seagraves High School security footage, showed Goen entering the locker room, but he wasn't seen leaving. The camera later showed a girls basketball team showing up for a game. Footage on the recording device revealed an empty locker room and then a girls basketball team entering. A third video was interrupted after the device was unplugged. Other video footage on the device's storage card showed Goen, which an FBI Special Agent was able to positively identify.
"The recording device was placed in a changing room with the intent to record people without their consent," the arrest warrant states. Fortunately, a speaker was placed in front of the recording device, which blocked the view of any girls changing in the locker room.
Goen was informed of the investigation on November 22. Less than a week later, he was placed on administrative leave. Earlier this week, Pyburn issued the following statement after notifying parents, per KAMC:
On November 15th, our high school girls basketball team was playing in Seagraves. A recording device that resembles a phone charger was in the locker room when they entered. Luckily the girls sat down a speaker in front of the device, that blocked the view of the girls changing. One of the last girls to leave the locker room thought that the device was one of the girls’ phone chargers and brought it back to the bus. None of the girls on the team claimed it and it was left on our bus. An 8th grader that was on a field trip the next day recognized that the device was a recording device and turned it into our dean of students Tyson Jones. Tyson turned it over to the county’s school resource officer Colby Neil and it’s my understanding that the investigation is ongoing. I would like to thank Tyson Jones and Officer Colby Neil for always protecting our students.