Former counselor accused of child rape

A former Shelton High School freshman counselor was arrested Friday at his Shelton-area residence by Mason County Sheriff’s Office deputies after a two-month investigation.

Samuel Martin Caffey, 29, faces charges of child rape, child molestation, sexual misconduct with a minor, delivery of a controlled substance and possession of child pornography.

Caffey was booked into Mason County Jail on Friday afternoon and made his initial court appearance Monday in Mason County Superior Court, where Superior Court Judge Monty Cobb set bail at $300,000. Caffey’s next scheduled court appearance is scheduled for 9 a.m. June 20. He remained in custody as of the Journal’s Wednesday press deadline.

The Journal generally does not name or publish details regarding minors or victims of sexual assault.

According to a sheriff’s office news release announcing the arrest, an investigation began April 5 after a juvenile was reported missing by her family. Family members located her about a mile from her home before sheriff’s deputies arrived. She was with Caffey, who allegedly hid in nearby trees.

Both Caffey and the student were interviewed by deputies that evening. Although their contact was considered suspicious, investigators were unable to establish probable cause that a crime had occurred.

Jason Dracobly, chief deputy of operations at the Sheriff’s Office, told the Journal on Monday that the office has been investigating Caffey since the April 5 contact. He said detectives have received other complaints about Caffey since then and he was labeled a potential suspect. The juvenile from the April 5 incident decided to speak to law enforcement on the record, which gave the Sheriff’s Office probable cause to arrest Caffey.

Dracobly said he does not know how many people have come forward, but he said he suspects something happened that provoked potential victims to come forward.

The Shelton School District, in an email statement to the Journal on Monday, wrote that “the district was made aware of concerns involving Mr. Caffey, and pursuant to our normal procedures, he was immediately placed on administrative leave, indefinitely, to complete an investigation. The outcome of the district’s investigation resulted in Mr. Caffey’s discharge from the district. The Shelton School District will continue to support the Mason County Sherriff’s Office while they complete their investigation.”

Dracobly told the Journal the Shelton School District was working with the Sheriff’s Office on the case.

“Throughout the past two months following that initial contact, MCSO detectives have continued investigating the case in cooperation with the Shelton School District and the Shelton Police Department,” the MCSO news release states. “Additional complaints of inappropriate contact by the counselor toward other female students have since been reported and are being investigated.”

According to the probable cause affidavit obtained by the Journal on Monday, a parent tracked the juvenile’s location with her cellphone and drove to a dirt road to find the phone on a motorcycle with no one around. After a short time, the juvenile came out from the forest and was with someone, who came out of the woods after allegedly hiding for about 45 minutes. The person was later identified as Caffey.

Caffey consented to speaking with deputies and explained he was the assigned counselor for the freshman class at Shelton High School and the juvenile is a student he sees frequently, both in one-on-one and group sessions. Caffey stated, according to the affidavit, that he contacted the juvenile through social media, but recently deleted his account because he had gotten back together with his wife. Caffey also said he communicated with the student through an additional social media app.

In the affidavit, the parent had previously been to Shelton High School and was concerned about the student meeting with Caffey so frequently and missing classes. Caffey stated he is supposed to document each time a student comes to see him, but he recently had not been doing so. The school administration told him it was inappropriate for him to communicate with students on social media, which he said he would not do anymore, but continued to do so with this student.

According to the affidavit, deputies also interviewed Caffey’s wife, who stated she and Caffey had fights over this and another student communicating with him in an inappropriate way and expressing feelings for him. Caffey’s wife allegedly told him to report this to school administration, advising he had done this before with other students, but he never reported it.

According to the affidavit, Caffey’s wife allegedly told detectives she was a student at Shelton High School when Caffey was a counselor there. She said nothing inappropriate occurred while she was a student, but he said things after they started dating about remembering her from high school.

During an interview with police, the student allegedly told MSCO detectives she started dating Caffey in February, and he had purchased a cannabis vaping device for her.

Dracobly told the Journal the Sheriff’s Office is continuing to investigate and they are sorting through some of the social media comments generated from their post about the arrest.

“We are looking for folks to come forward to us or the city so we can get these cases appropriately investigated,” Dracobly said.