James Wilder III, a former teacher and coach at Lindbergh Schools, was charged on Sept. 30 by the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office with three counts of second-degree statutory sodomy and one count of first-degree attempted statutory sodomy — deviate sexual intercourse with a person less than 14 years old. The charges date back to the 1990s and early 2000s.
According to previous reporting by The Call, Wilder coached the Lindbergh High School girls cross country and track teams. He was a physical education teacher at Sperreng Middle School, having taught there from 1993 to 2013; he had also taught health and math classes at the middle school in the past.
Three separate students have disclosed that while Wilder was a teacher and coach, he engaged in sexual contact with them. Wilder was over the age of 21 during these offenses. Wilder was previously arrested in 2013 for one of these cases, but the charges were dropped because the victim, Emilie Morris, died; per police, her death was unrelated to the case.
Wilder was also arrested in December 2008 at Sperreng for alleged sexual abuse of a female student, per previous reporting by The Call, but was never charged after separate investigations by county police, the Department of Family Services and the school district.
The case was reopened this summer following a change to Missouri law that took effect in August, raising the age limit for admissible out-of-court statements from under 14 to under 18.
“(Cold case detective John Bradley) directed his investigation to go and find any school members, friends, family members of Emilie, who may have disclosed what Mr. Wilder did to her back in the day. When (Bradley) was conducting that investigation, it resulted in him interviewing two additional victims,” Chief Trial Attorney John Schlesinger said at a press conference on Sept. 30.
Each of the three incidents occurred over the span of more than one year.
Confidential Victim #1, who was under the age of 17 at the time, disclosed offenses that took place from April 1, 2007, until Nov. 6, 2008.
Confidential Victim #2, who was under the age of 14 at the time, disclosed offenses that took place from Aug. 1, 2005, until Dec. 1, 2006.
Confidential Victim #3, who was under the age of 17 at the time, disclosed offenses that took place from Aug. 1, 1995, until Sept. 21, 1996.
Lindbergh Schools sent a message to its district families on Sept. 30, the day Wilder’s newest charges were issued. The message stated that the district is “very disturbed and deeply troubled by these charges” and that Wilder “has not set foot inside a Lindbergh school” since he was previously arrested in 2013. The district says it has since made “many improvements to its procedures for preventing, training, identifying and reporting inappropriate staff behavior,” including an annual mandatory training for all employees.
Wilder is being held on a $300,000 cash-only, no 10% bond. Those with any additional information are urged to contact the St. Louis County Police Department at 314-615-5400.
“We want victims to know that despite the years that pass without answers, they are not forgotten. And we want to send a message to the perpetrators who assault victims: They shouldn’t ever think that they got away with it due to the passage of time, because the police will never stop investigating, and we will never stop working with the police to find justice for these victims,” St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Melissa Price Smith said at the Sept. 30 press conference. “Disclosure leads to healing. And once a victim discloses, they are no longer anyone’s victim.”
