That was the public persona of William Vahey until a maid stole a memory drive from him in November. It held evidence that Vahey had molested scores of adolescent boys, possibly more during a four-decade teaching career.
"He's one of the most prolific pedophiles that we've seen here due to the sheer numbers," FBI Special Agent Sharon Dunlap said.
The discovery has set off a crisis in the community of international schools, where parents are being told their children may have been victims, and administrators are scurrying to close loopholes exposed by Vahey's abuses.
Apparently, not even Vahey's victims knew they had been molested. The double-cream Oreos that he handed out were laced with sleeping pills — enough to leave the boys unconscious as he touched them and posed them for nude photographs.
Vahey attempted suicide in Nicaragua after his maid stole the drive. He survived, but killed himself on a second try, stabbing himself to death at age 64 and leaving hundreds of former students wondering if they had been abused.
There were decades of missed opportunities to expose Vahey, starting with an early California sex-abuse conviction that didn't prevent him taking a series of jobs exposing him to children.
In 1969, Vahey was arrested on child sexual abuse charges after police said he pinched the penises of eight boys, ages 7 to 9, at an Orange County, California, high school where he taught swimming. Vahey, then 20, told authorities he had started touching boys without their consent at age 14.
He pleaded guilty to a single charge of lewd and lascivious behavior. He received a 90-day jail sentence and five years' probation, but he was allowed to leave the country in January 1972.
Vahey began his international teaching career at the American School in Tehran, the first in a series of stays around the Middle East and Europe. He taught history, social studies and related subjects in Lebanon, Spain, Iran, Greece, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, almost always to middle school students.
