Married teacher who groomed and sexted boy, 16, avoids statutory rape charges, jail

A plea deal meant no prison time for a now-former special education teacher charged with multiple felonies for grooming a minor student with sexually explicit content featuring herself.

Little more than a year after Rikki Lynn Laughlin had gotten married, the mother of a one-year-old child began messaging a student as St. James High School in St. James, Missouri, through Snapchat. Now, nearly two years later, Laughlin was sentenced to five years of probation, having pled guilty to one lesser charge to avoid seven felony charges, including sexual exploitation, child pornography, and statutory rape.

According to a report from KRGC, Laughlin had been charged in Oct. 2024 for possession of child pornography, tampering with physical evidence in a felony prosecution, tamper or attempt to tamper with a victim in a felony prosecution, sexual exploitation of a minor, furnishing pornographic material to a minor, sexual trafficking of a child under 18-years-old and second-degree statutory rape.

Instead of five years in prison, the now-26-year-old, said to have sent pornographic material of herself and received images of the minor, pled guilty to one count of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child creating substantial risk with no sexual conduct and given probation for her illicit actions involving the student as a result of her deal with the Grundy County Circuit Court.

The grooming of the minor was said to have begun in Sept. 2023 before, according to statements made by the student to the police, “things progressed fast.”

In addition to the naked images, videos of her performing a sexual act, and solicitation of images from the boy, Laughlin was alleged to have invited the student over to her home to rape him while her husband was out of town. In response to the invitation, the student was said to have told police “he did not feel comfortable,” but did admit to kissing the teacher.

By Nov. 2023, Laughlin’s employment with the school had been terminated after rumors of the relationship circulated the school, prompting an investigation by law enforcement. According to a probable cause statement from the Maries County Sheriff’s Office reported by the River Front Times in Oct. 2023, the teacher implored the student to delete the message history and allegedly said, “I could go to jail if those pictures come out.”

The teacher was also said to have claimed in defense of her actions with the student, “I was not aware he was a minor until yesterday,” as the age of consent in the state of Missouri is 17-years-old. Laughlin had also claimed that the student was the one who’d initiated their Snapchat exchanges before she had consented to a search of her phone, at which point investigators found the video of her performing a sexual act described by the student.