Auburn police on Thursday arrested a drama teacher at Green River Community College for allegedly hiding a video camera in the women’s dressing room of the drama department to record a 20-year-old female student changing clothes.
Gary K. Taylor, 71, accompanied by his attorney, Neal Fox, turned himself in to police Thursday afternoon and was later booked into the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent for investigation of a single count of voyeurism, a Class C felony. Taylor made his first court appearance Friday afternoon at the RJC and was released on his own recognizance. He was ordered not to have contact with the young woman. He has not yet been formally charged. His next court appearance was to be today, Oct. 4. His formal arraignment could be two weeks away.
“The instructor (allegedly) asked the woman to try on a few different outfits for a photo shoot because the college newspaper was going to do an interview with her and needed photos to accompany the story,” Auburn Police Sgt. David Colglazier told the Auburn Reporter.
Auburn Police Detective Aaron Williams wrote in the affidavit of probable cause that at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Taylor met the student at the dressing room, showed her four of the dresses and asked her to try them on. She entered the dressing room and closed the door. As Taylor waited outside, she stripped down to her bra and underwear to try on the dresses. After putting on all four dresses, she stepped out to show Taylor two of them, Williams wrote.
Williams wrote that the student was putting her clothes back on when she noticed a small, black Sony video camera sticking out just slightly from between some pillows on an upper shelf inside the dressing room. She removed the camera and realized that it had been aimed at and recorded her as she changed. Williams wrote that she recognized the camera as similar to one she had seen Taylor use to tape past performances.
Williams wrote that the student took the camera to the college’s main office, where campus security contacted her. While waiting for police, she played back the recording. According to Williams, she told officers that at the beginning, she clearly saw Taylor putting the camera on the shelf. Williams wrote that she said Taylor had placed and aimed the camera. At this point she grew upset and turned off the recorder.
According to Williams, an Auburn police officer watched the video and confirmed the student’s account, nothing that it had recorded her changing clothes, capturing images of her in her underwear and bra and showing even her buttocks and bare breasts.
GRCC spokesman John Ramsey said administrators were told of the arrest.
“The college is aware of a potentially serious situation involving one of its faculty,” Ramsey said, reading from a prepared statement. “We have been and will continue to cooperate with local authorities. We respect the privacy of all parties and will keep the campus updated when appropriate. We place a high value on student safety.”
Taylor, who has been working at the college since 1967 and is the second head drama instructor the school has ever had, has no known criminal history. He is on emergency leave, but remains on the payroll.
The college’s newspaper, The Current, never ran a story about the play itself, but wrote about the arrest. It quoted a former student who called the married professor as “creeptastic.”
