A Beaumont high school JROTC instructor is accused of secretly recording an underage girl in the girl’s home shower.
Glendel Wayne Carpenter, 49, was arrested and charged with possession or promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child younger than 18, a state jail felony.
A probable cause affidavit obtained by 12News stated that a woman found a camera hidden in the air-conditioning vent of her home bathroom and reported it to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
The woman said the camera was pointed toward the shower and connected to a battery pack so it could record continuously.
Investigators traced the camera’s wireless internet network connection back to Carpenter and allegedly found video on his cell phone of the woman exiting the shower unclothed.
The woman identified herself as the person in the video and said based on the date stamp, she was a minor at the time it was recorded.
Carpenter was booked into the Jefferson County Jail and later released on a $25,000 bond.
It’s unclear how Carpenter gained access to the woman’s home or whether she has been a student at his school.
Carpenter was a Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) instructor at Beaumont United High School in the Beaumont Independent School District.
According to a Beaumont ISD spokeswoman, Carpenter resigned before the district was notified about the warrant for his arrest, and school officials have cooperated fully with law enforcement.
Online records show Carpenter had worked for Beaumont ISD since the 2019-20 school year.
Carpenter received one-year emergency permits to teach JROTC starting in 2017. His current teaching certificate expires August 31, 2026.
At least three other Texas JROTC instructors have been charged with child sex crimes in recent years.
Staff Sgt. Michael Songy was arrested in May 2025 and charged with indecent assault of students while he was the lead JROTC instructor at Rock Hill High School in Prosper ISD.
Andrew Smierciak was arrested in January 2026 on a charge of indecency with a child when he was a Leadership Officer Training Corps instructor at Poe Middle School in San Antonio ISD.
Sgt. Oscar Rosel Olvera was arrested in January on a charge of child grooming involving a student while he was a JROTC teacher at Mercedes High School in Mercedes ISD.
In just the past few years, hundreds of Texas school employees have been accused of sex crimes involving students and other children, and thousands have been reported to the Texas Education Agency for sexual misconduct.
