Spencer Herron is a former Kell High School video production teacher in Marietta, Georgia, who pleaded guilty in 2019 to six counts of sexual assault of a student in Cobb and Cherokee counties after using an unapproved “drone club” to isolate and abuse a 16-year-old. He served roughly four years in prison, was paroled in the summer of 2022, and is a registered sex offender. His crimes and the double life he kept from his wife became the basis for the podcast Betrayal and the Hulu docuseries Betrayal: The Perfect Husband.
The Teacher Behind the Case
Before his arrest, Herron was one of the most visible teachers at Kell High School in the Cobb County School District. He taught video production, was twice named Cobb County Teacher of the Year, and was widely regarded on campus as a beloved figure by students and colleagues.
At home, he appeared equally settled. He had married his college sweetheart, Jenifer Faison, a television producer who moved to Georgia after the two reconnected on Facebook. They opened a wine bar together and were about seven years into what Faison later described as a “fairytale romance” when he was arrested.
The Fake Drone Club
During the 2015–2016 school year, Herron created what he called the “Kell High School Drone Club.” It was never formally approved by the school’s administration. No application was submitted, no dues were collected, and no faculty sponsor was assigned to coordinate it. Herron funded purchases, including a drone, through the existing video production club’s account, and the club continued operating without oversight through the 2016–2017 school year.
Herron used the club to groom and isolate a 16-year-old student publicly identified only as Rachel. He obtained her phone number through club communications and began texting her in 2016, complimenting her appearance and personality. During class and club meetings he would pull her aside to touch her and talk to her while other students were still in the room, and he instructed her to stay behind after meetings once the others had left. When school was not in session, he told her to tell her parents she had a “drone club meeting” so the two could meet at the school for sexual encounters.
In July 2016, Herron brought the student to the Woodstock Microtel Inn and Suites in Cherokee County for the purpose of sexual intercourse. Prosecutors later stated that throughout 2016 and 2017 Herron repeatedly arranged to be alone with the victim “under the pretense of meeting for a nonexistent school club,” facilitating assaults both on school grounds and during unsanctioned field trips.
Arrest, Guilty Pleas, and Sentencing
Rachel reported the abuse to her mother and then to police in May 2018. The Cobb County Sheriff’s Department arrested Herron at his home on June 1, 2018, initially charging him with three felony counts of sexual assault by a teacher or school administrator. The Cobb County School District terminated him on June 12, 2018.
Because the offenses occurred in two counties, Herron was prosecuted twice.
- In Cobb County, Herron pleaded guilty in January 2019 to five counts of sexual assault of a student. He was sentenced to 20 years, with the first five in prison and the balance on probation.
- In Cherokee County, Herron pleaded guilty on December 5, 2019, before Judge John Sumner to one additional count of sexual assault of a student arising from the July 2016 hotel incident. He received six years, with the first five in confinement and one on probation, to run concurrently with the Cobb County sentence.
Both sentences forbid him from contacting the victim and impose sex offender conditions, including a prohibition on any contact with minors. The charges were brought under O.C.G.A. § 16-6-5.1, Georgia’s statute criminalizing sexual contact between school employees and students at the same school; under that law, a student’s consent is not a defense.
Parole and Current Status
Herron was granted parole in the summer of 2022 after serving approximately four years. He is required to register as a sex offender. Faison has said publicly that she has had no contact with him since his release.
The Civil Suit Against School Administrators
On July 9, 2019, Rachel sued three Kell High School administrators: former principal Ed Wagner, who had become an assistant superintendent for the district; then-current principal Andy Bristow; and assistant principal Susan Stoddard. The complaint alleged they violated Cobb County School District policy by failing to review and approve new clubs and field trips, failing to assign a sponsor to the drone club, and failing to require written permission for student participation, allowing Herron to hold unauthorized, unsupervised meetings and take students on unapproved outings. Rachel’s attorney, Mike Rafi, said the suit sought both damages and institutional reforms.
The administrators invoked official immunity, the Georgia doctrine shielding public officials from personal liability for discretionary acts absent actual malice or intent to cause injury. The trial court granted them summary judgment, and on October 11, 2022, the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed in R.H. v. Wagner et al. (Case Nos. A22A0658, A22A0683). The appellate court held that the school board’s club-approval policy was not “clear, definite, and certain” enough to impose a non-discretionary duty, and that Rachel had not alleged the administrators knew about the relationship before her report to police or acted with malice.
In a statement at the time of filing, Rachel said, “I want girls to know that it is wrong for a trusted adult to abuse that trust to manipulate them into doing things that they are not comfortable with.” She has also described the personal toll: “I went from a happy, carefree, and hopeful teenager to a cynical, angry, and depressed one. I completely shut myself out from people. I withdrew from my family and my friends and by the time I was a senior, I had no communication with anyone that I was involved with at school.” She graduated from college in 2022 and has participated in public speaking engagements alongside Faison.
Jenifer Faison and the Betrayal Podcast
Faison was blindsided when police arrived to arrest her husband. Two days later, she logged into his Facebook and email accounts intending to deactivate them and found a folder of photographs of numerous women and correspondence revealing a long history of simultaneous affairs stretching back to the week of their wedding. “Spence was the last person who I ever would have guessed would have taken advantage of a kid,” she later said. “I realized that afternoon that life as I knew it would never be the same.”
Faison turned the experience into the Betrayal podcast, produced with Glass Podcasts and distributed by iHeartMedia, investigating the full scope of Herron’s double life through interviews with women who had been involved with him, the student victim, and Herron himself. ABC News Studios adapted the material into Betrayal: The Perfect Husband, which began streaming on Hulu on July 11, 2023.