SMITHFIELD - The Johnston County schoolteacher accused of raping an 11-year-old student in 2003 also had an affair with the boy's father, Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said Monday.

Rebecca Withrow, a fifth-grade teacher at Polenta Elementary School in the Cleveland community, is charged with rape, indecent liberties and committing a sex offense against a student. Withrow surrendered to authorities Friday, two days after resigning.

Bizzell said Monday that investigators collected physical evidence in Withrow's classroom that helped substantiate the boy's story of abuse. The sheriff would not specify the evidence but said it was gathered in the spot where the boy said he had sex with his teacher.

Detectives launched an investigation of Withrow late last month after the boy's mother reported the incident to Johnston County Sheriff's deputies. Bizzell said the mother also told detectives that her husband had an affair with Withrow when her son was a student in Withrow's class during the 2002-03 school year. Authorities said they didn't know when the relationship between Withrow and the boy's father began or ended.

The relationship with the father was well known within the school community, several parents have said since Withrow's arrest. Christine Livingston, a teaching assistant and parent, said in an interview that she complained to school administrators about their affair when she resigned in December 2004.

School administrators put Withrow on paid leave Sept. 29 after the complaint from the boy's mother.

The boy's mother declined to comment when reached Monday.

The News & Observer is not naming the mother to protect the identity of her son; the newspaper generally does not name victims of reported sex offenses.

Withrow, 30, wearing glasses and long, frizzy hair, stood before District Court Judge Addie Rawls on Monday morning, shackled at the ankles, while her attorney promised the judge that she could be trusted to behave outside jail. Withrow rubbed her nails against a table while her attorney, J. Michael McGuinness of Bladen County, talked about Withrow's teaching skills and asked the judge for flexibility.

Withrow stared straight ahead and didn't say a word.

"Your honor, she needs to be with her young children," McGuinness said.

$750,000 bail stands

Rawls refused to lower Withrow's $750,000 bail and ordered her back to jail.

Withrow was a well-regarded fifth-grade teacher who also served as president of the school's parent-teacher association. She was praised by students and parents alike.

"If you asked me Thursday which teacher I wanted my child to have, it would have been her," said Kim Dayberry, who has two children at Polenta, including a fourth-grader.

Instead, the scandal has pushed parents to have uncomfortable conversations with their children. Dayberry had an early birds-and-bees talk with her 9-year-old and explained that she should tell someone she can trust if an adult tries to touch her inappropriately.

Her daughter's response: "I can trust my teacher, right?"

Most of the time, Dayberry said.

Alone in classroom

Withrow's fifth-grade classroom sat at the far end of a long hallway, the farthest in its wing from the central administrators' office.

In 2003, she had plenty of time alone with the boy during one-on-one tutoring sessions, Bizzell said. He said Withrow abused the boy several times from February to June of that year, raping and molesting him in the classroom during the regular school day. It's not clear whether Withrow was also dating the boy's father at the time.

Withrow's marriage dissolved during this period. According to Durham County divorce records, Withrow's husband of six years left her in May 2003. When their divorce was finalized in August 2004, Withrow and her husband agreed to split custody of their two daughters, now 7 and 9.

If Withrow is convicted, she could spend more than 22 years in prison.

More cases reported

During the past five years, more than 200 teachers, coaches or school administrators in North Carolina have been charged with sexually abusing their students.

So far this school year, 28 cases of sexual behavior between teachers and students have been reported to the state Department of Public Instruction, said Harry Wilson, an attorney for the state school board. Throughout most of the 1990s, there were fewer than 20 such cases a year.

Wilson attributes the increase in part to victims' being more willing to report the crimes.

"It's hard to know whether they've spiked or whether there is a greater willingness for people to come forward and say this has happened and this is wrong," Wilson said.

(Staff writer Eric Ferreri and news researchers Denise Jones, Susan Ebbs, David Raynor and Paulette Stiles contributed to this report.)