A Martinsburg, West Virginia, woman is under investigation by Jefferson County Schools (JCS) for the production and distribution of pornographic material at the high school where she is employed as a counselor for at-risk children.
The woman, Taylor Loren Staubs, 31, is alleged to have taken highly explicit photos in her office and various other rooms in Washington High School, during school hours on a near-daily basis. A source close to the investigation stated that Staubs would then send the pornographic images to men and post them in Facebook chats, as well as a large Discord channel for a sex club in Pennsylvania.
On October 26, a criminal complaint was filed against Taylor Staubs with the Charles Town Police Department. The following day, authorities met with a witness who shared censored photos of Staubs with School Resource Officer Michael Lipscomb, who confirmed the images were taken in Staubs’s office and other rooms in the high school. Lipscomb, who works with Staubs at the school, could not confirm if there was a lock on the door to Staubs’s office, which is only accessible by walking through a student-filled classroom.
An investigator with the Charles Town Police Department found no criminal acts had been committed by Staubs and referred the activity to an investigator with Jefferson County Schools for administrative action.
When asked for comment on the investigation, JCS removed Taylor Staubs’s name and contact information from the website for Washington High School before responding with the following statement:
“Jefferson County Schools does not comment on specific personnel matters or actions outside of the board agenda items. When Jefferson County Schools receives information regarding inappropriate conduct by an employee, we immediately begin an investigation into the allegations. It is not unusual for an employee to be placed on leave during the process. Pending the outcome of the investigation, employees either return to work or are recommended for disciplinary action up to and including termination. At this time, Jefferson County Schools has no knowledge of any incident that involves or would jeopardize the safety and well-being of our students.”
While JCS stated that they have “no knowledge of any incident” that would “jeopardize the safety and well-being of our students,” an investigator for the school district was also provided with screenshots confirming that Staubs is friends on Snapchat with at least one child, a 17-year-old high school boy in neighboring Berkeley County. The screenshots were obtained through an ethical exploit within Snapchat. The screenshots showed all of Staub’s friends on the messaging app, which is known for its ability to share disappearing photos and videos. The friends appear in the order of most recent contact. The 17-year-old boy was the second contact, while Taylor Staub’s current paramour, Captain Trent Heckman of the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office, is Staub’s sixth contact.
Several other profiles that appear to be associated with underage boys are also on the list of contacts related to Staub’s Snapchat account.
According to a source, law enforcement was also provided with this information but argued that no probable cause existed to take further action against Staubs.
Before working at Washington High School, Taylor Staubs was a well-known former forensic interviewer and supervisor for the Children’s Home Society in Martinsburg, WV. According to Staubs’s curriculum vitae, which was filed in several cases in which she appeared as an expert witness in cases of child abuse and neglect, she has conducted over 300 forensic interviews with children and was sworn in as an expert witness in court dozens of times in Berkeley, Jefferson, and Morgan county courts.
Staubs was known as a rising star in the local court system, where her stepfather, Berkeley County Circuit Court Judge R. Steven Redding, has served on the bench since his appointment in 2018. Steve Redding is currently one of four candidates under consideration by West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey to fill a vacancy on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.
In a trial that took place in July 2024, Staubs served as an expert witness with her lover, Captain Trent Heckman, who was married, without disclosing her affair, creating a possible Brady Violation in a high-profile case that led to the incarceration of a couple accused of child abuse.
Staubs was no longer employed by the Children’s Home Society after that trial for unknown reasons and left her profession as a forensic interviewer to work at Washington High School in a grant-funded position as a School Facilitator through the non-profit Communities in Schools. Jefferson County Schools employs and pays Taylor Staubs.
Taylor Staubs, Steve Redding, and Trent Heckman were also recently implicated in an alleged scheme beginning in 2019 to have Staubs’s ex-husband, Travis Miller, falsely convicted of domestic violence to gain a custody advantage of their child. Staubs was not a party to the allegations of domestic violence or involved in the incident.
Miller, who was six years away from his military retirement at the time of his conviction, leading to his immediate discharge, filed a Writ of Coram Nobis in Berkeley County Circuit Court on Halloween. The extraordinary legal filing requested that Miller’s conviction be overturned based upon newly obtained evidence that Taylor Staubs illegally obtained Miller’s criminal file to mirror statements of the alleged victim to secure his conviction. The alleged victim at the time was Miller’s partner. The couple married following their court ordeal that they allege was a conspiracy orchestrated by Staubs using the authority of her stepfather, Steve Redding, as well as her connections from her law enforcement paramour and the victim advocate community.
In the Coram Nobis filing, Miller’s wife provided an affidavit recalling her meeting with a domestic violence advocate and a prosecuting attorney in which she was told, “Taylor is a very good friend of ours. She came to us off the record, and to be honest, we’re here to get justice for Taylor.”
Following that meeting, Travis Miller was convicted by Judge Laura Faircloth, a colleague of Taylor Staubs’s stepfather, of domestic violence and given a one-year suspended sentence and three years of probation. Miller’s attorney, who was recommended to Miller by Staub’s stepfather, Judge Steve Redding, objected to Miller’s then-partner testifying in his defense.
The conspiracy was recently exposed when, on October 6, 2025, Staubs submitted a filing for her custody case with Miller in Berkeley County Family Court. Staubs’s filing included Miller’s entire criminal file from the incident, which contained the victim’s name, address, his child’s name, and even Miller’s driver’s license number, proving Staubs had illegally obtained it.
It’s unclear whether Taylor Staubs will be able to use the influence of her stepfather and law enforcement lover to escape termination by the Jefferson County Board of Education, which is holding a regular school board meeting on Monday, November 10.
On the agenda for the school board meeting is an executive session to discuss “personnel matters”; however, no action is noted, as is typically the case with past agendas, where a vote is taken following the executive session to terminate an employee.
The Charles Town Police Department closed its investigation of Taylor Staubs on the same day it was opened, before meeting with the witness, the school resource officer, or even reviewing the evidence. The Charles Town Police investigator who made the decision to close the case, knew Staubs from her work as a forensic interviewer.
Under indecent exposure laws in West Virginia, creating pornographic content in a private area of a public space, such as Staubs’s office in the back of the classroom, may be prosecuted if the actions were “likely to cause affront or alarm to others.” Sources indicate that neither School Resource Officer Michael Lipscomb nor the JCS investigator knew if Staubs had a lock on her office door, which was just feet away from students.
