SICKENING details have emerged about teacher Tad Cummins who kidnapped his 15-year-old student and abused her in a shack after months of grooming.
Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Thomas previously opened up about how her 50-year-old teacher “preyed” on and “manipulated” her back in 2018.
A new 20/20 interview revealing more information on the case is set to air Friday at 9pm on ABC.
A preview of the two-hour program shows ABC correspondent Eva Pilgrim saying that new information will be released about the events that unfolded when Thomas was kidnapped.
The new interview comes about three years after the pervert teacher was jailed for 20 years after being confronted in court by Thomas, who he went on the run with when she was just 15.
Cummins sparked a nationwide manhunt when he vanished with his teen victim for 38 days in 2017.
The new 20/20 will look deeper into the events that led up to the teen’s disappearance, never-before-released evidence, and Cummins’ prosecution, the LaughingPlace explains.
The program will feature new interviews by “key investigators and prosecutors who brought Cummins to justice, including Special Agent Sterling Wall, the lead FBI agent on the case; Special Agent Tyler Sells with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation; detective Marcus Albright, the lead investigator from the Maury County, Tennessee Sheriff’s Office; and Sara Beth Myers, the lead federal prosecutor on the case.”
Never-before-broadcast video clips of Cummins’ interrogation with authorities and an interview with his former wife Jill will also be shared.
Others interviewed in the program are Cummins and Thomas’ family members.
Additionally, Thomas’ family attorney Jason Whatley, District Attorney Brent Cooper, and Griffin Barry, the man whose tip led to Cummins’ arrest, are expected to be featured.
For anyone who is unable to watch tonight’s program, the 20/20 interview will be available on Hulu starting December 3.
‘DISGUSTING CRIMINAL’
Thomas previously told authorities that she and Cummins had sex “every day as they traveled from state to state posing as husband and wife” between March 13 and April 20.
In an emotional statement when Cummins was in court, she revealed the trauma she has suffered and branded him a “sick, disgusting criminal.”
“You preyed upon a vulnerable girl and robbed her childhood,” she said.
“For the last two years, I’ve been picking myself up, piece by piece, and proving to myself that I am much, much stronger than you convinced me I was.
“The effects have been devastating and permanent, and they are not over. They are still an ongoing struggle that I experience one day, and sometimes even one moment, at a time in my life.
“What you did to me is unspeakable. I don’t know that any words could ever accurately express how much pain I have suffered and continue to suffer because of you.
“I believe Mr Cummins’ sentence should be 38 years in prison – one year for each day he kept me away from my family.”
Her statement was read out to a Nashville federal court after she broke down in tears.
Also in her statement, cited by NBC, Thomas said: “He chose to be a sexual predator. He chose to prey on me, knowing the problems I had in my home life, and he convinced me that I was weak.
“He chose to belittle me, degrade me, and abuse me. There is no doubt in my mind that if Mr Cummins had never been caught, he would have eventually discarded me like a piece of trash and made another impressionable young woman his next chosen victim.
“Tad Cummins is a sick, disgusting criminal.”
Cummins was arrested in April 2017 and the then 15-year-old girl was found safe at a remote cabin in Northern California.
They traveled some 1,900 miles from the girl’s hometown of Culleoka, Tennessee.
In April 2018, Cummins pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and taking a minor across state lines for sex.
In 2019, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
