Martinsville, Indiana is an unusual little town 30 miles south of Indianapolis. Known for it’s fabled mineral water was, at one time, the headquarters for the Ku Kux Klan in Indiana and it’s a reputation that the city has fought hard to overcome. Regardless, Martinsville makes the news often and it’s rarely for anything good. There was a school shooting there. A cop tazed a 10-year kid at a daycare. A Congressional candidate from Martinsville was charged with 8 felony counts of intimidation for Facebook posts. Prosecutors had to throw out dozens of bad dope cases because of shady enforcement. Martinsville just cannot seem to catch a break so, arguably, maybe it’s something in the fabled mineral water that makes people there…a little off.
Back in February Martinsville High School teacher and boys basketball coach, Tim Wolf, was arrested after police said they found him sitting partially naked inside of his car, which was parked near a playground. A 17-year-old girl was also inside of the car. According to a police report, an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer was patrolling Eagle Creek Park when he noticed a silver Chryser parked approximately 30 to 40 feet away from a playground. The officer said he found 65-year-old Wolf inside his car with his pants unzipped and the girl in the passenger’s seat.
Court document said the officer saw “suspicious movements from the passenger.” Wolf has been a teacher at Martinsville High School for more than 20 years. Parents and students allege he has been having an affair with the 17-year-old girl for more than a year. “It was obvious they were having an inappropriate relationship, we were just waiting for it to come out,” said Dalton Leitz, student. Students said their friends have filed anonymous reports through the school’s tip line. “Him and this girl and other girls, I’ve seen numerous girls hanging out in his office with the doors closed,” said Leitz.
The school released the following statement after the February arrest:
Metropolitan School District of Martinsville learned today the Martinsville High School basketball coach Timothy Wolf was arrested yesterday in Indianapolis. This afternoon Wolf’s attorney, John Boren, notified the school administration that Wolf will retire from the school district effective today, contingent on school board acceptance. In the meantime, I have authorized an immediate internal investigation focused on gathering the facts. The M.S.D. of Martinsville also plans to fully cooperate with law enforcement during its investigation.”
The girl reportedly worked at a restaurant that Wolf owns. A school employee said the girl recently graduated and that the alleged inappropriate behavior between her and Wolf had been part of a yearlong conversation among teachers and coaches at the school. Wolf is preliminarily charged with indecent exposure. The girl was not arrested but was taken to her car which was parked in a lot nearby. Reports now suggest the plot has widened. A Martinsville 2nd Grade teacher and High School girls tennis coach, Jeff McGown, was placed on administrative leave last week pending an investigation.
WXIN-TV is reporting that Rumors have a way of spreading quickly in a small town like Martinsville, and word gets around even faster at the high school. “We knew about it for a while before it came out… I knew about it freshman year.” Martinsville High School sophomore Nick Ruddell is talking about an alleged inappropriate relationship between a 17-year-old student and two district employees. High school teacher and head boys basketball coach Tim Wolf was caught semi-nude in a park with the girl, according to police. Second grade teacher and girls high school tennis coach Jeff McGown was accused this month, of misconduct with her.
Ruddell said both cases, particularly Wolf’s, were the talk of the school long before the allegations surfaced. “Just because they’ve seen them out so much together, people have talked about it at school, saying they’ve seen them holding hands and walking.” Once the news broke in February about Wolf, Ruddell and two friends went to that month’s school board meeting. said says one of his friends spoke up. “He just told everybody that people are supposed to look up to him. He’s supposed to be a role model for us students, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it, they didn’t have anything to say,” said Ruddell.
A few weeks later, Ruddell and those same friends were called out of class to the principal’s office one by one, and questioned by an attorney representing the district. “He asked me what they asked me and I told him. He said ‘did it feel like your stories were getting flipped around’ and I said yeah. He said ‘like they just keep asking you questions’ and I was like yeah.” In response to this story, the Martinsville School District issued the following statement: “MSD of Martinsville has cooperated and will continue to cooperate with both the State Police and the Special Prosecutor’s office regarding their investigation. The School Corporation is also conducting an internal investigation and has interviewed a number of high school staff and students in the course of its investigation.”
A special prosecutor has been named to take over a State Police investigation into the misconduct of employees in the Martinsville School Corporation. Morgan County Judge G. Thomas Gray named Johnson County Deputy Prosecutor Doug Cummins as special prosecutor in the case. Morgan County Prosecutor Steve Sonnega stated last week “it became clear that it was the appropriate time to make the request for a special prosecutor for the case”.
