Teacher talked suicide

Kim Smith

Wednesday, May 29, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

Three days after leaving California with her 15-year-old student, 33-year-old Tanya Hadden told the boy she planned to kill herself, according to the boy's grand jury testimony.

Transcripts released Tuesday provide further insight into the case Clark County prosecutors have built against Hadden, a San Bernardino teacher indicted two weeks ago on 19 criminal charges.

The 10th grade science teacher is accused of beginning an affair with the boy in California and then driving him to Las Vegas April 29. She was arrested May 2 when authorities found them at the New Frontier.

The boy told grand jurors that after spending two intimate nights with Hadden in Las Vegas she pulled into an outlet mall, handed him some money and told him to call his parents.

He refused, and during the ensuing conversation, Hadden said she was going to commit suicide.

"Did she say why?" Deputy District Attorney Lisa Luzaich asked.

"Because she didn't want to go to jail, and that was the only other thing she could think of," the boy said.

The boy told grand jurors that on the day he and Hadden drove to Las Vegas he had been interviewed by Rialto, Calif., police who were investigating reports she had supplied him and other minors alcohol.

Upset that he had "broken" his parents' trust, the boy said he wandered around after school for awhile before calling Hadden. She picked him up and they ended up in Las Vegas.

The boy said it was Hadden's idea to drive to Las Vegas.

"We were really far, and she asked if I'd ever been to Las Vegas and I said 'No.' She asked if I wanted to go and I said 'Sure,' " the boy said.

Asked if Hadden had any luggage, the boy said she just had a backpack.

"What was in the backpack, anything unusual beside books or notebooks or anything?" Luzaich asked.

"No. All I know is there was a lot of underwear," the boy said.

The boy said at one point he and Hadden talked about going back to California, picking up her paycheck and then heading to Northern California or Canada until he turned 18.

After he turned 18, the boy said, he planned to get a General Equivalency Diploma and "go to like junior college and go to Cal State."

According to the grand jury transcripts, Hadden denied having sexual intercourse with the boy despite the hickies both of them had.

"She told me that somebody that was old enough had given her those hickies," Metro Detective Cheryl Hooten said.

Hadden remains in the Clark County Detention Center on $280,000 bail. She faces 12 counts of sexual conduct between a teacher and a student, six counts of statutory sexual seduction and one count of first-degree kidnapping.