The recent crimes of 43-year-old Oklahoma schoolteacher Serena Cator are unsettling, but they’re not the first of their kind. Considering the seemingly recent influx of female schoolteachers whose names have gleaned headlines nationwide—Sandy Carazas-Pinez, 33, of Yonkers, New York; Jacqueline Ma, 34, of San Diego, California; and Cali Heikes, 25, of Winside Nebraska, for instance—she won’t be the last either.
But why?
For about three years, Serena was known as Mrs. Cator to her students at McLoud High School in McLoud, Oklahoma, roughly 26 miles east of Oklahoma City. She was hired as a paraprofessional in the 2020-2021 academic year but served as a home economics teacher at the time of her termination.
On March 16, 2023, Mrs. Cator was arrested and charged with three felonies for using the social media app Snapchat to illicit sexual conduct with at least 10 male students. Her victims ranged in age from 14 to 18, and included two former boyfriends of her own daughter. Mrs. Cator also sent explicit photographs of herself and requested the same from at least three victims.
Mrs. Cator’s Consequences Are Still To Come
Officials from McLoud High School began investigating Mrs. Cator in November 2022, when a parent came forward after their teenage daughter said her teacher was having sexual relations with several students. Mrs. Cator was terminated on December 20, 2022.
Mrs. Cator was interviewed by the school district, during which she signed her signature on a document that indicated she “willingly admitted she had been sending and receiving lewd and indecent messages and pictures from several of her male students.”
Mrs. Cator told administrators that she believed she suffered from a mental illness that made it difficult to distinguish fantasy from reality. She also admitted to drinking alcohol “way too much” and admitted that she needed help. Officials turned the investigation over to the McLoud Police Department.
Mrs. Cator stalks and grooms her victims.
Mrs. Cator purportedly used the same grooming process with each of her 10 victims.
First, she approached them at school and then requested to add them on Snapchat. The role of Snapchat here is significant because it has a popular feature that allows users to have their messages and photos disappear after a few seconds. Mrs. Cator likely chose the app, in my opinion, because she believed that incriminating evidence would be deleted.
Both of these actions followed up with Mrs. Cator attempting to establish relationships with the mothers of these male students. She did so by photographing the students in class and sending the photos to their moms, stating how “great” of students their sons were, and also by attending out-of-school sporting events.
Many of these parents later recalled Mrs. Cator’s behaviors as unusual, but were not overly suspicious because it was a female teacher communicating with male students—and not the other way around.
Mrs. Cator’s arrest affidavit states:
Serena Cator is a predator, a stalker and a pedophile, stalking young boys from the age of 14 and up. Most of the young victims said they found the situation extremely weird and cut off correspondence before they got lured to Snapchat or just after…
Most of the parents felt uneasy about the constant texts and pictures from class and from sporting events, where Cator was bragging on the students. All the parents said if it had been their daughter and a male teacher, they would have been alarmed, but each said they pushed down the ‘weirdness’ of it because it was their sons and a female teacher, who they ‘thought’ they knew.”
Photo from The Big Sandy Mountaineer.
Serena Cator was released from the Pottawatomie County Detention Center in Shawnee, Oklahoma, after posting $15,000 bond.
More About Mrs. Cator
Serena Cator was born Serena Merrill to her parents Ruth and Alan Merrill. She was raised in Big Sandy, Montana alongside her brother on their family farm, where her responsibilities included cooking, cleaning, mowing the lawn and “running meals out to the men.”
Serena is an athlete and lover of the outdoors. She attended Big Sandy High School, where she was the first student to receive the newly-created Duane Olson Memorial Athletic Scholarship in 1997 for her commitment to athletics.
Serena attended Montana State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in human development and family science. Ironically, she dreamt of joining the FBI, but instead she joined the U.S. Army after college, where she worked in military intelligence. It was there she met her husband, Kody Cator, who served six years in infantry; Serena served four. The couple married in 2008 and currently have two children.
The family initially returned to Big Sandy to live on the family farm. For a time, Serena worked at a local grocery store and was involved in girl’s youth basketball, and even held the position of head coach. Her and Kody were longtime members of the Montana Farmer’s Union, where Serena’s father served as president for 14 years.
Serena was hired to work as a paraprofessional at McLoud High School for the 2020-2021 academic year.