A teacher and coach at an elite New Jersey boarding school leaped to his death from the George Washington Bridge – on the same day investigators showed up at his campus to investigate allegations of sex between a student and teacher.
Popular teacher Donovan Dickson, 24 – whose Facebook page features several photos of him posing with students at the co-ed Peddie School in Hightstown – jumped from the New York side of the GWB last Friday around 11:30 am, authorities said.
That same day, police were sent to the $50,000-a-year Peddie School to investigate possible criminal charges against a teacher, officials said.
“Detectives were sent to the Peddie school last Friday to assist Hightstown in investigating allegations of inappropriate sexual contact between a teacher and a student,” a spokeswoman for the Mercer County prosecutor’s office told The Times of Trenton, which first reported Dickson’s leap and the school probe.
Authorities would not say if the two incidents are related or whether Donovan had been part of the investigation into teacher-student sex allegations.
Prosecutors did not release the name of the teacher involved and no charges have been filed in the underage-sex case, the Times reported.
Dickson, a New Hampshire native, had been teaching math at Peddie since 2011 and also coached the boys’ cross country, track and wrestling teams.
A Port Authority spokesman said Dickson was spotted on the bridge, near the Manhattan side pillar, by a police lieutenant last Friday morning.
“He apparently jumped from the south walkway and did not land in the water,” spokesman Joe Pentangelo said.
Dickson’s body was identified by his brother.
Piddie Headmaster Peter Quinn sent a letter to parents and students Tuesday about the “troubling events” and said he had met with students about the incident on Monday. He said it was a “sacred trust ” for faculty to ensure student safety at the high school, but did not give any details on the alleged student-teacher sex assault.
”The broad outlines of those events are known; the details I cannot discuss,” Quinn wrote in his letter, according to the Trenton Times.
Dickson was “loved and admired by his students and colleagues at the Peddie School,” an online obituary for the teacher noted. “He injected happiness and spirit into every occasion.”
A Dickson family member wouldn’t comment Friday, other than to say a memorial service was being planned.