Hundreds of people have contacted the FBI about a teacher suspected of drugging and molesting boys during a four-decade career at international schools on four continents, greatly expanding the potential number of suspected victims.
The FBI said last month that William Vahey had molested at least 90 boys, whose photos were found on a memory drive stolen by his maid. The bureau said Tuesday that it has now "been contacted by several hundred individuals from around the globe wishing either to reach out as potential victims or provide information in the ongoing investigation."
Special Agent Shauna Dunlap said officials wanted as many people as possible to call or contact the FBI through its website in order to receive counseling and provide information about a man who the bureau calls one of the most prolific pedophiles in memory.
Vahey killed himself at age 64 after evidence of molestation was found on a memory drive stolen by a maid in Nicaragua.
He was one of the most beloved teachers in the world of international schools that serve the children of diplomats, well-off Americans and local elites. The discovery of his molestation has set off a crisis in the community of international schools, where parents are being told their children may have been victims, and administrators are scurrying to close loopholes exposed by Vahey's abuses.
Apparently, not even Vahey's victims knew they had been molested. The double-cream Oreos that he handed out at bedtime on school trips were laced with sleeping pills — enough to leave the boys unconscious as he touched them and posed them for nude photographs.
There were decades of missed opportunities to expose Vahey, starting with an early California sex-abuse conviction that didn't prevent him taking a series of jobs exposing him to children.
In 1969, Vahey was arrested on child sexual abuse charges after police said he pinched the penises of eight boys, ages 7 to 9, at an Orange County, California, high school where he taught swimming. Vahey, then 20, told authorities he had started touching boys without their consent at age 14.
He pleaded guilty to a single charge of lewd and lascivious behavior. He received a 90-day jail sentence and five years' probation, but he was allowed to leave the country in January 1972.
