Episode Details

A Downer’s Grove, Illinois Mom comes across disturbing text messages as she sets up her 15-year-old son’s new iPhone using a backup from his iCloud account.  The contents make her take her son straight to police! It looks like the teen is discussing a sexual encounter with a love interest...his married, 30-year-old teacher, Christina Formella.   

The student tells police Coach Formella started sending him flirty messages on the school’s chat system when she also became his tutor in the fall of 2023. He explains their conversations moved to text after the teacher gave him her phone number so they could play a game together. There are records of numerous facetime calls between the pair, the victim saying their relationship outside of school culminated in the December rape.  

Formella denies raping the boy or having a romantic relationship with him, claiming she’s a “good person” and “everybody” comes after her because of her good looks. Formella admits she did develop a close relationship with the student, and “cares too much about him,” but calls him a stalker in the same breath. Formella then insists she did not send the texts, claiming her kindness towards the boy gave him opportunity to break into her unattended phone, send the texts to himself, then delete them off her phone so he could later use the texts as blackmail.  

Joining Nancy Grace today 

• Eric Faddis  - Trial Lawyer and TV Legal Analyst, Founding Partner of Varner Faddis Elite Legal, former felony prosecutor and current criminal defense and civil litigation attorney 
• Dr. Shari Schwartz  - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy),  www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: @TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology"
• Brian Fitzgibbons  - Director of Operations for USPA Nationwide Security, Leads a team of investigators specializing in locating missing persons, website: www.uspasecurity.com, Instagram: @uspa_nationwide_security, former 
• Scott Eicher -  A founding member of the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team (C.A.S.T); Historical Cellular Analysis Expert; Former FBI agent of 22 years; Former Police Officer and Homicide Detective with Norfolk Virgina Police Dept. Currently with Precision Cellular Analysis handling Criminal, Defense and Civil case, website: pcaexperts.com
• Anna Sonoda - Child sex abuse/grooming expert, Clinical Social Worker, Former Therapist for Convicted Sex Offenders, Author of "Duck Duck Groom"
• Sydney Sumner (TX), CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter

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