West Texas School Superintendent Kills Self After Allegedly Trying to Record Girls in Locker room

A West Texas school district superintendent apparently committed suicide after his arrest for allegedly placing an electronic recording device in the locker room of visiting girls’ basketball team. The now-suspended superintendent of the Seagraves Independent School District was released on bond after his arrest.

UPDATE – December 9:  Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office officials confirmed that Seagraves ISD Superintendent Joshua Neil Goen apparently committed suicide after being accused of attempting to video record a girl’s basketball team in their locker room. KCBD NBC11 in Lubbock reported that sheriff’s office deputies arrived at Seagraves parent’s home near Shallowater, Texas, and found dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. The apparent suicide followed his release from jail on bond following the video allegations.

Police in Gaines County, Texas, arrested Seagraves Independent School District Superintendent Joshua Neil Goen on Tuesday on charges related to alleged invasive visual recording. Seagraves Police Department investigators worked with the Gaines County Sheriff’s Office and federal investigators to develop evidence after a video recording device was found in a girls’ locker room.

The incident came to light when an 8th-grade girl From Hale Center ISD found a recording device in the Seagraves visiting-team locker room, KCBD NBC 11 in Lubbock reported. The girl was the last to leave and discovered what she believed to be a cell phone charging device. She carried the device out to the bus to try to find its owner.

Further investigation revealed the device was actually a digital video recorder. Evidence suggests that Goen placed the device in the girls’ dressing room area shortly before the team arrived.

“Luckily, the girls set down a speaker in front of the device that blocked the view of the girls changing,” Hale Center ISD Superintendent Pyburn told the Lubbock NBC affiliate.

KCBD reported:

Pyburn said none of the girls on the team claimed it, so it was left on the bus. He said the next day, an 8th grader who was on a field trip recognized that it was not a phone charger, but a recording device.

That student turned it in to Hale Center ISD’s Dean of Students, Tyson Jones, who then turned it over to the county’s School Resource Officer Colby Neil.

Police investigators executed a search warrant on the device and found a video showing the locker room which officials described as a “dressing room with an expectation of privacy.” The first video showed the empty locker room. A second shows the girls entering the room. The third video ends as the device is unplugged by the student who made the discovery.

Other videos on the SD card allegedly show images of Goen.

According to the arrest warrant reported on by KCBD, investigators allege the device was placed in a changing room with the intent to record people without their consent.

Police arrested the now-suspended superintendent on Tuesday and placed him in the Gaines County Jail. He remains in jail on a $75,000 bond.

The case is being investigated by local law enforcement, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security.