News

Registered sex offender arrested on school campus

By Lightning Reports, Published: December 18, 2021

Henderson County sheriff’s deputies arrested a 46-year-old registered sex offender and his school employee wife Thursday after the man was seen on the Flat Rock Middle School campus.

The sheriff's office received a call from Henderson County Public Schools personnel that the staff member at the middle school, Maria Edina Walker, was married to a registered sex offender, Jeffery Lynn Walker, and that he had been seen in a vehicle on the campus. It is illegal for a registered sex offender to be on school property at any time.

Upon receiving this information from the school system the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office immediately begin an investigation into this incident. As a result of the investigation both Maria Edina Walker and Jeffery Lynn Walker were arrested.


Jeffery Walker was charged with two counts of felony sex offender unlawfully on premises and jailed on a $50,000 bond. Walker is a registered sex offender in North Carolina because of his conviction on a charge of second-degree sexual assault of a minor in Florida. Maria Edina Walker, 50, was charged with two counts of felony aid and abet sex offender unlawfully on premises and jailed on a $30,000 bond.

After investigating Maria Walker's actions, school administrators sacked her immediately.
"As a result of that investigation, we confirmed that the individual in question, Jeffery Lynn Walker, is a registered sex offender and that at Maria Walker’s invitation, he had been on the Flat Rock Middle campus," county schools spokeswoman Molly McGowan Gorsuch said. "It is illegal for a registered sex offender to be on school property at any time, and Ms. Walker’s actions were grossly inappropriate and inexcusable. We immediately terminated Maria Walker from employment for her actions, which are a violation of state law and Board policy."