Assistant Principal Accused of Sex With Students Found Dead

Assistant Principal Accused of Sex With Students Found Dead

A North Carolina assistant principal has been accused of having sex with students back in the 1990s has been found dead.

David Eugene Bostian, 59, was found dead by Wilmington police at his Tipton Court home about 9 a.m. on April 2, just hours after he was arrested for sexual misconduct stemming from a relationship he had with a student in the 1990s. He was out on bond when his body was found; a police spokeswoman told the NY Post.

Detectives were investigating the circumstances surrounding Bostian’s death, the spokeswoman Jessica Williams said.

“The cause of death is still under investigation at this time,” Williams wrote in an email. Bostian, who was until the time of his arrest, an assistant principal at Noble Middle School, was charged with two counts of a sexual offense by a government employee after a former student at New Hanover High School said they had a sexual relationship spanning two years in the early 1990s, Wilmington Police Lieutenant Jerry Brewer said.

The pair allegedly did not have intercourse, but the “abuse was ongoing for over two years,” Brewer told The Post.

The now-adult student who called a school resource officer to report the allegations is believed to have been 15 and 16 at the time, Brewer said.

The victim has since been identified as Claudia Gardner. According to local TV station WECT, Gardner provided to law enforcement, as well as local paper the Port City Daily, 30-plus screenshots of text messages between her and Bostian from March 18 through March 25. In the messages, Bostian admits to the relationship on multiple occasions.

“I take all responsibility,” he wrote in one text, provided to Port City Daily. “I’m just saying that what I did has been with me deep down.”

Within hours of Claudia Gardner breaking her 30-year silence to a deputy, Bostian was taken into custody early on the morning of Friday, April 2, after meeting with investigators looking into the allegations. Brewer said he was given a $150,000 unsecured bond and was released.

Speaking to the Port City Daily, Gardner said that she used to consider Bostian — who was then a physical education teacher and football coach at New Hanover High School — her high-school boyfriend. Now she considers him a predator.

“It sounds so stupid coming out of my mouth now, but I honestly believed that I loved him and he loved me, and we would just ride off into the sunset,” she told the paper. on a March 25 phone call. “It was ridiculous.”

The relationship began when Gardner enrolled in Bostian’s weightlifting class in ninth grade. Bostian later called her home phone and inquired about recruiting her 14-year-old boyfriend at the time to the junior varsity football team, according to Gardner.

After that, the two started talking more frequently. He convinced her to break up with her boyfriend, she said, by telling her she was “too mature for guys” her age and needed “a real man.”

According to Gardner, they often snuck around after school. She would fill out paperwork for Bostian, and they met on school grounds and in the New Hanover Regional Medical Center parking lot. She said they had “a lot of physical contact,” which included oral sex while she was still a minor.

“He just told me everything I wanted to hear, and I’d meet him in the hospital parking lot, and we would kiss and hold hands and fondle,” Gardner said. “It was disgusting. I don’t even want to think about it.”

Apparently, other classmates and Bostian’s football players knew about the relationship, she said, but she does not believe staff or administrators did. A photo shared with Port City Daily showed a peer wrote in Gardner’s yearbook: “I hope that you and coachwork things out, so you don’t have to go behind [his wife’s] back!”

A spokesperson for New Hanover County Schools (NHCS) told WECT that Bostian resigned his position at Noble Middle School early Friday. He had been employed by New Hanover County Schools since 1985, the station reported.

The cause of Bostian’s death is still under investigation, according to law-enforcement officials.

Lt. Brewer said under an unsecured bond, if a defendant is released and goes home, it is up to the family to take out involuntary commitment orders. Unless an individual is severely incapacitated, they are unlikely to be involuntarily committed.

At approximately 4:30 p.m. on April 2, NHCS Superintendent Charles Foust released the following statement: “I want to offer my deepest condolences to everyone affected by this case. We will wrap support around the Noble Middle School students and staff members during this difficult time. We also will remain vigilant to protect children and provide safe learning environments in all of our schools.”

He added that crisis counseling was provided Friday for students and staff of Noble Middle.

5 thoughts on “Assistant Principal Accused of Sex With Students Found Dead

  1. so what motivated this “student” to come forward some time later?? there is more to this story than has been reported. did she try to re-kindle the “romance”, and was rebuffed??? I see no reason to disclose it now. she will live with both the dishonor and his death. “she doesn’t even want to think about it”. why did she???

  2. If she didn’t mind what she was doing
    way back then and everything was ok, then why bring it up now? Besides, she had to know that he was married. So there appears to have been more going on than what she’s admitted to. Now she has to live with what just happened and it shouldn’t have.

  3. THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG WITH THIS WOMAN. NOW SHE HAS THE DEATH OF A FORMER LOVER TO HER CREDIT. PERHAPS A MURDER CHARGE COULD BE BROUGHT HER.

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