JACKON TEACHER LINKED TO BABY BURIAL CASE

JACKSON, Mo. -- A junior high teacher has been charged with sex crimes involving a 13-year-old student who gave birth to a stillborn infant and buried the body behind her house.

Thomas Mark Sprandel, 37, of Fruitland, Mo., was charged with two counts of statutory sodomy and first degree child endangerment for reportedly having sexual contact with the girl.

Sprandel, a math teacher at R.O. Hawkins Junior High School, was being held Saturday on $100,000 bond in the Cape Girardeau County Jail. Investigators say he had sexual contacts with the girl between March 17 and April 23 last year, and at least one incident happened at the school.

Although DNA tests to determine the stillborn infant's father aren't complete, authorities do not believe it's Sprandel's.

"It is important to note that he is not charged with having sexual intercourse with the girl," Cape Girardeau County Prosecutor Morley Swingle stated in a press release.

Sprandel was suspended from work with pay, and Jackson school district officials are waiting for the outcome of the investigation to act further, said assistant superintendent Rita Fischer.

Charges against Sprandel came Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into the burial of the baby's body, discovered on March 14. Jackson police went to the teen's home after a phone tip to a state child welfare agency and found the body in a shallow grave. They turned the girl over to juvenile authorities, but she wasn't charged as an adult with any crime.

Now 14, the girl told a detective with the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department about the relationship after love letters were discovered in her bedroom air vent.

The letters, addressed to the girl from Sprandel, were typed on computers at the school and at Sprandel's home, court documents state. The girl wrote letters to Sprandel while she was staying with her father in Malden, Mo.

Final results from an autopsy of the infant will not be complete for two or three weeks, said Mike Hurst, Cape Girardeau County coroner, and a DNA test using either a blood or tissue sample from the infant will take between 15 to 60 days, he said.

Charges of statutory rape could be filed after the identity of the father is determined, depending on whether he is 17 or older, Swingle said.

Sprandel came to Jackson public schools in August 1988 and was a coach in the Jackson Area Optimist Soccer Association. Fischer said he has no district record of disciplinary action, and she was shocked by the arrest.

"Our primary concern is for the safety and welfare of our students," she said.

A message left at the Sprandel residence wasn't returned.