Wichita teacher charged with illegal sex got student’s number from school records
A now-terminated Wichita Collegiate School teacher and former Wichita city council candidate charged with carrying on a sexual relationship with a student started text messaging her when she was a sophomore after getting her phone number from school records, according to an arrest affidavit released Tuesday.
The following year, when the girl was a high school junior, the teacher, Rodney C. Wren, touched her and “grabbed the inside of … (her) legs outside of her clothing” while they were in a school parking, according to the affidavit, which was written by a Wichita police detective after the girl reported the illegal relationship earlier this year.
The report led to criminal charges that Wren’s defense attorney, John Rapp, said Tuesday he “intends to vigorously defend.”
According to the affidavit, the encounters progressed from meetings in hotel parking lots where Wren would kiss and sexually touch the student, to Wren asking the girl to send him nudes photos of her over Snapchat.
Once, during finals week, Wren had the girl follow him home to engage in intimate touching but she “began to have a panic attack” and called it off, the affidavit says the girl told police.
Wren also engaged in sexual touching and oral sex with the girl “most days” her senior year in his Wichita Collegiate School classroom, which had no windows and a lock on the door, the affidavit says. At one point, they met and had “sexual relations” at a bed and breakfast.
She told police she believed flowers she once received anonymously at school were sent by Wren to woo her.
After the girl graduated from high school and went away to college, Wren continued to contact her and would travel to meet her but would tell Wichita Collegiate School “that he was attending a conference,” the affidavit says.
The girl told authorities “she was trying to end their relationship” after she started college “but every time he would travel she felt bad as he was spending so much money to continue their physical relationship so she allowed it to continue.”
Later, when she “ ‘put her foot down’ and told him she couldn’t do it anymore,” the affidavit says Wren sent her a video of himself with a pistol in his mouth and threatened to pull the trigger.
On May 19, 2018, after receiving emails from Wren, the girl threatened to file a restraining order against him, according to the affidavit.
She didn’t hear from him again until Feb. 24, 2019, when he emailed, saying: “I just want to be your friend. Please talk to me.”
Nearly a year later, on Jan. 2, 2020, he sent another email, begging her to reconnect: “I know I don’t deserve you. But I need you in my life. I was an escape for you because your parents were such a burden. And then I became a burden and you needed to escape me. I get it. But please, please reconsider just allowing me to be a part of your life again. You have done such amazing things and I am so proud of you. You are truly spectacular which I always knew you were and would be. I just want to be friends again. Please reconsider.”
The girl told police she decided to report her prior involvement with Wren after she talked to a friend and “realized the seriousness of the situation” and started worrying that he might “do these things to someone else,” the affidavit says.
Screen shots of text and email conversations the girl had with Wren that were quoted in the affidavit include times where Wren told her, “I have the hots for u” and “u have an advantage over me.” Wren also professed his love for the girl to one of her friends in a Facebook messenger chat, the affidavit says.
Police arrested 39-year-old Wren on Feb. 7 following an investigation that included Wichita Collegiate School showing a detective Wren’s classroom and police confiscating Wren’s school-issued laptop and 26 storage devices including thumb drives and DVDs. He is charged with three counts of unlawful sexual relations that allegedly occurred May, June and August of 2015.
In Kansas, it’s illegal for a teacher to have a relationship with a student even if the student is 16, the age teens can legally consent to have sex with an adult.
Wren has pleaded not guilty, his lawyer said.. His next court date is scheduled for June 12, court records show.
Wren was a longtime teacher and debate coach at Wichita Collegiate School and ran for the District 2 Wichita City Council seat in November’s general election. He also is a former contender for the Kansas House of Representatives District 83 seat but dropped out of the 2012 race due to personal attacks, according to The Eagle’s news archives.
Collegiate placed Wren on administrative leave after learning of the police investigation and fired him when he was arrested. He was released from jail on Feb. 8 to go to Comcare, Sedgwick County’s mental health and substance abuse crisis center, for an emergency medical evaluation. He remains released on bond.
One condition of his bond forbids him from having contact with any Wichita Collegiate School student. He also is forbidden from having contact with any child younger than 16 unless an “authorized responsible adult” is present, according to court records.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
