A teacher preparing a teenage student for sex called him “bad boy” and spoke explicitly about her sexual stamina in a disturbing exchange of about 6,000 messages.
The texts between Dean Gray and his teacher were sent between April and July 2013 – when the 17-year-old was in his final year of school in Narrabri, northern NSW.
It wasn’t until Dean drowned in a freak accident on a boys camping trip in October 2021 at the age of 25 that his mother Cherina Gray found the messages on his phone and realized the extent to which her son had been cared for.
Now Daily Mail Australia can reveal the true extent of the texts between Dean and his teacher, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The teacher initially contacted him via Facebook about his math results, but the texts gradually became more intimate, until the tone shifted and they started talking about their sexual exploits.
Pictured: Dean Gray with his fiancé Taylor and their son Bostin, before he passed away in 2021
Dean Gray, 25, (pictured with his mother Cherina) drowned on a camping trip in October 2021
Dean’s mom Cherina Gray discovered messages between him and his former teacher (Photo: A mock-up of the texts)
“Every time I’ve thought about you these past few months, including now, my body reacts ridiculously well,” she wrote after one of their first sexual encounters.
In another text, she said it was hard to “get my body going” because the “location” – which seemed to be somewhere in the school – wasn’t ideal and she couldn’t be bothered with “curtains, noises , people’ and ‘no lingerie’.
The relationship lasted about four months before Dean received a furious message from the teacher’s husband, who blamed the teen for the relationship, saying, “Keep your dirty hands off my wife.”
Dean struggled with his mental health after graduating high school, to the point where he revealed his abuse to some friends, but eventually shied away from making a formal complaint.
In the end, he told a friend that the teacher was a “deep, dark, twisted” person who “you don’t want to be tied down with.”
‘Your kisses, your mouth, your hands’
Ms Gray believes one of the first times the teacher had sex with her son was over Easter break in 2013 – while he was completing a woodworking assignment at school.
Afterwards she wrote: ‘Sorry! That was NOT my body – that was my brain intervening.’
“I can tell you that because every time I’ve thought about you for the past few months, including no, my body is responding ridiculously well. Just not before today…”
‘How do you feel?’
Dean replied, “I’m feeling pretty good. Hips are a little sore, knees are a little sore. Good workout.’
“Just kidding, a badass doesn’t feel pain.”
She wrote, “OK badass. You clearly don’t have a brain that needs a lot of preparation.’
The texts between Dean and his teacher were often sexual and described their exploits (Photo: A mock-up of the texts)
At one point, the teacher spoke about her sexual stamina (photo: a mock-up of the texts)
The teacher also said she was thinking about “your kisses, your mouth, your hands” (Photo: A mock-up of the lyrics)
“I don’t call today’s effort dinner or dessert. It was appetizer. Maybe just an appetizer.’
She was later shown to be concerned that her sexual performance was unpleasant for the teen.
“I’ve been thinking about my badass cute butt and wondering if I totally screwed it up,” she wrote.
He asked, “Why do you think you messed something up?”
She replied, “I screwed up with you by not being very good to you.”
Dean jokingly said, “you were okay I guess” before adding, “Don’t worry, I just have a little bit of stamina.” Prepare for next time.’
The teacher then said, ‘It wasn’t so much the stamina, actually, I can do that. It was the first nerves, I couldn’t get my body going. Like a mental block.’
“Brain kept worrying about things—curtains, noises, people, no lingerie, things like that.”
At another point, the teacher said she was thinking about “seeing you, being with you, talking to you, kissing you, your mouth, your hands.”
Dean replied, “Hmmm. Those are good things… good when you consider I’m such a badass.”
She said, “Nothing bad about all those things, bad boy. You have to be just bad enough to be my kind of bad.”
Dean Gray, pictured with his fiancee Taylor Baxter and their son Bostin, disappeared on a camping trip
“My girlfriends have kids older than you”
After one of their first sexual encounters in April 2013, the conversation turned to whether others would find out about their relationship.
“Seriously, I’m not telling anyone,” she said.
‘Do you have any idea what they would think? Are you sure no one else knows?’
He replied, ‘I know, I know. I just know what you women talk about when you get a few wines in you.’
‘Nobody knows. It will be our secret.’
She said, ‘Believe me – I’m not a talker about this. Thank you.
He wrote, “Hmm okay. I trust you.’
The teacher then said, “My friends have children older than you.”
The couple was invariably worried that someone would find out about their relationship (Photo: A mock-up of the lyrics)
‘My husband knows’
The relationship only seemed to end when the teacher’s husband found out, in July 2013.
She wrote, “Hey, I need to see you and talk to you. My husband knows and he wants it to stop. When can I speak to you personally? He knows we’re going to meet and talk about it.’
Dean replied, “How did he find out?”
She replied, “He has seen our conversations. It’s okay, I just need to talk to you for a second. No one else knows.’
Two days later, Dean received a furious message from the teacher’s husband, from the teacher’s account.
“This is the nameless husband…I hope you understand the hurt and pain you caused (in) 12 months when you were on girlfriend number two or three, we’ll still try to pick up the pieces of a shattered marriage turnips,” he wrote.
“Don’t you dare talk to my wife again, let alone put your dirty little hands on her body…or there will be repercussions.”
Heartbreaking find
Dean, his younger brother and some of their closest friends packed their bags for a few days at an estate along the Namoi River on October 16, 2021.
But the journey took a tragic turn when Dean, who was just 25, injured himself while swimming across the rushing river.
He dislocated his shoulder, so his friends told him to hold on to the riverbank while they looked for a way to help him.
His body was found four days later two kilometers downriver from where he was last seen.
Pictured: Dean, on his last camping trip the day he went missing
Pictured: Namoi River near Narrabri, where Dean went missing
His parents had learned about the relationship in 2016 after a relative disclosed details of the abuse.
At the time, they reported the allegations to the police and the Ministry of Education, but an investigation was closed due to “insufficient evidence”.
While the teacher was being examined, Ms Gray said Dean’s behavior changed – he broke all the bones in his foot in a cycling accident and said he wished he had been run over by a lorry.
“I knew something was up,” she said.
However, Mrs. Gray did not know the full extent of the relationship – her son was a private person and withdrew from his family when they learned of his grooming and abuse.
After he died, Mrs. Gray tried to piece together his last moments and started checking the messages on his phone.
“I’m scrolling through these posts — the first one that came up was when he was threatened by her husband,” she said.
“I scrolled through it and started capturing it all – I kept going, I couldn’t go to bed, so Rob and I stayed up until 2am, talking back and forth about what I found and how shocked I was. ‘
The pair spent 18 hours going through about 6,000 messages between the teacher and her son.
“It was so heartbreaking because I see my son being lured into this relationship and left out in the cold at the end and then blamed,” she said.
“He lives under our roof and we didn’t even know about it. I really felt like a failure.’
Dean and Taylor (pictured together) got engaged around 2018, before having their son Bostin
Official complaint
Ms Gray made copies of all the messages and complained to the Department of Education.
The teacher, who had been promoted at another school since Dean’s abuse, was removed from personal contact with children within 48 hours.
However, police said the complaint could not proceed because the victim was dead.
Mrs. Gray recalled a moment when a local constable said, “How many people do you want me to upset, Cherina?” these witnesses all mourn the death of dean.’
“I said, ‘it has nothing to do with what I want, it’s your business to investigate’.”
The teacher at the center of the allegations has a PhD from another school and is still employed by the Department of Education.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the teacher and the NSW Department of Education for comment.