Student gave police binder full of love letters from ex-teacher

DENVER - A college counselor told investigators in California last fall that a junior high school teacher and coach now teaching in Colorado had sex with a former student, starting when the girl was 13, according to court documents obtained Monday.

After the allegations became known, Abigail Anne Holloway, 33, was removed from a similar teaching job at St. Mary's Academy in Cherry Hills Village. She was arrested last week on sexual-assault charges stemming from her work at a Sunnyvale, Calif., private school.

The sexual encounters began in 2001, when the girl was on Holloway's junior high softball team at The King's Academy in Sunnyvale, records said. It lasted until Holloway moved to Colorado in 2005, the girl told investigators. She estimated they had been intimate "over 100 times," according to records from the Sunnyvale Police Department

She is now a student at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., and told a school counselor about the relationship.

The student gave investigators a 2½-inch-thick binder with love letters, cards and poems she said were from Holloway.

"We have a very special relationship. It is a gift from God," states an alleged e-mail from Holloway to the girl in March 2003. "Not many people are going to understand that, but we know in our hearts that God made us for each other!"

In January, investigators recorded a phone call between the girl and Holloway in which the two talked about their sexual encounters. Holloway followed up with an e-mail the next day.

"For the longest time, I felt like maybe I had tricked you into our relationship somehow," the e-mail states. "It was very real to me, and the best time of my life so far."