Kamiak Assistant Coach Confronts J425 About Julian Willis Reporting
Lots of personal grievances but no mention of concerns relating to victim, students or personal responsibility in bizarre postgame rant from gatekeeper of Willis tips
A common explanation for not reporting questionable behavior is, “If I reported and I was wrong, I would have ruined the life of another teacher.” I have never heard a colleague say, “If I didn’t report and this person had abused, I’d have ruined the life of a student.”
- Dr. Carol Shakeshaft, author of “Educator Sexual Misconduct”
GODDARD MEMORIAL STADIUM — The 57-12 beatdown the 6-2 Lake Stevens Vikings had just delivered to the hosting Kamiak Knights wasn’t the source of Kamiak assistant coach Damon Terry’s ire.
Nope, in this post-game moment, for an audience of one, Terry sarcastically railed against J425’s 2023 reporting that revealed a Kamiak assistant football coach was under criminal investigation for sex crimes involving a minor student.
And despite the fact that J425 was first to identify, confront and help sideline a predator who was preying on an underage female football manager…
Kamiak assistant football coach Damon Terry was laser focused on making it clear to J425 publisher Kevin Thomas Hulten… that he’d been none-to-pleased back in early 2023… to see his name in J425’s reporting on serial sex predator Julian Willis.
However, if Terry didn’t like getting named in a story that essentially portrayed him as one of the only protagonists to take action in a dark situation, he might’ve left well enough alone, because during a strange parking lot performance that involved both direct and third person criticism of 2-year-old J425 journalism… punctuated by a theatrical series of handshakes and somewhat-less-than-warm resuscitations of “it’s great to finally put a face with the name of the guy who wrote about me”…Terry managed to put himself under the microscope with respect to state reporting law… after confirming to J425 Saturday that it took some four plus months for information relating to the serial predation of a minor Kamiak student… to make it from the players whom Terry overheard it from in the Fall of 2022…to the proper authorities who ultimately put a stop to Julian Willis’ multi-state reign of abuse.
For Terry, the difference between turning around the information in 24 hours as opposed to four months didn’t amount to much before now. For the girl who needed that report to be made asap? Well. She was kidnapped and/or assaulted at least three more times after the point at which state law mandated a report be made.
You Know It’s Bad When They’re Rolling Up the Carpets
Willis, the former Kamiak High School assistant football coach and substitute teacher, currently faces three felony minor-involved sex crimes in a jury trial set to begin in six weeks.
Willis was fired by Kamiak hours after a J425 investigation reported that, among other things, detectives had recently yellow-taped off two Kamiak portables while they rolled up and shipped the classroom’s carpets south to the state crime lab, where the industrial fabric would be checked to ascertain whether stains on the carpets contained Willis’ DNA material.
The detectives knew which carpets to roll up because the 17-year-old victim described in great detail the assault she suffered – during the school day in some cases – providing hand-drawn maps to detectives showing the area of the portable Willis had taken her. If the victim were to be believed, detectives would find stained flooring underneath certain desks. And that they did.
And while one might assume a team of detectives cutting out the carpets from the new football coach’s portable might not go unnoticed on campus, reports obtained by J425 illustrate a culture inside the Kamiak football program circa 2022/23
… that wasn’t necessarily the best at noticing things.
That brings us back to Coach Damon Terry, expressing his displeasure with J425’s reporting on the Willis matter, in a Goddard Field parking lot used to stage visiting team equipment and vehicles.
In a tense several-minute public conversation with J425 Publisher Kevin Thomas Hulten following Lake Stevens’ 57-12 annihilation of Kamiak Saturday afternoon at Goddard Memorial Stadium, Terry repeated a construct in which he’d alternate between theatrically reaching out to shake Hulten’s hand – while doing so carefully repeating that it was great to finally put a face to the name of the guy who’d decided to put Terry in the story – before turning away as the handshake broke, continuing his complaints about J425 to others, speaking to them of Hulten as if the J425 publisher ceased to exist as soon as the handshake broke.
Terry’s criticism of J425’s reporting on the matter – reporting recently honored as a finalist for North American investigative reporting project of the year – included the fact that Terry wasn’t contacted for comment nor asked for his permission prior to publication of the story1.
Terry also concluded that J425 had put his personal safety at risk by choosing to write Terry into the story. 2
Terry said it was very easy to look up his home address or phone number once his name had been published. Terry never mentioned the victim. Nor the alleged sex criminal that he’d coached next to for months on end. This story, it seemed,wasn’t about them. In fact, Terry even inferred that J425 had decided to involve him in the story as part of some sort of narrative arrived at independent of the facts.
It’s really just the police report and court documents that identify you as a key component driving your inclusion, J425 told Terry.
As Terry continued to critique the reporting, he’d repeat his construct of shaking Hulten’s hand, stating that he was so glad that he could identify the writer behind the story, before pivoting back to speaking about J425 in the third person.
Terry continued on about how J425’s reporting had cast him and others in an unflattering light, telling another man that the articles made it seem like he’d known about Willis’ predations for a period of time prior to acting.
Ultimately, Hulten interjected and asked if Terry had any factual corrections to the reporting that he’d like to discuss.
Terry declined, stating again that it was great to finally put a face with the name, once again reaching out his hand for the fourth or fifth round of performative handshakes. Realizing that the handshake was just a device used to pull him back towards Terry, Hulten declined to the next offer of a handshake and honed in on specifics, asking Terry to confirm when he’d provided the Willis information to his supervisor.
“Did you turn him in during the football season?” Hulten asked.
No, Terry responded directly, he’d provided the Willis information to then-head coach Bryant Thomas in late March 2023, less than 24 hours before Thomas informed administration of the Willis matter.
This surprising utterance closed a timeline that began with Terry hearing about the Willis matter from players on multiple occasions “throughout” the 2022 season, which ended in mid November.
The same timeline ends when Terry provides the information to a supervisor, as required by law. Some five months later…
J425 previously reported that it was Terry who ultimately blew the whistle on Willis, providing information about Willis’ alleged relationship with a female student to then head football coach Bryant Thomas.
Terry’s identification and entrance into the Willis matter came courtesy of Mukilteo Police Department Eric Ofiori, arriving on scene at Kamiak on April 11, 2023 – some two weeks after Thomas had notified administrators that he’d received an anonymous tip from a community member regarding Julian Willis in late March, 2023 – setting in motion a murky chain of events that ultimately led to Willis’ firing, after what can be charitably described as a few initial missteps by coaches and building administrators. Thomas and a school resource officer quickly took the information from the anonymous tip and began an internal probe on the matter. And if ‘anonymous tip’ doesn’t sound much like the legally-mandated relay of information from coach Damon Terry to head coach Bryant Thomas as prescribed by law…you’re on to something
However, it was in fact, information gained from the anonymous tip that founded the initial mini-investigation that occurred inside Kamiak.
After several days of interviews produced only halting results, the school resource officer made the call to MPD, requesting departmental assistance.
That’s when Detective Ofiori arrived. And the first sentences of his investigative report reveal that all was not well at Kamiak, where the veracity of the information brought forward by Thomas was called into question.
“Although initial reports noted that a community member reported the allegations of inappropriate relations with a student to the school, interviews confirmed that Damon Terry, another assistant coach on the team, reported the allegations to Bryant Thomas, Dean of Students and head football coach,” Ofiori stated.
In other words, an investigation into allegations that a teacher football-slash-coach was engaging in a sexual relationship with a minor student… began with school officials providing police with inaccurate information.
This is not a good start, and obviously raises all sorts of questions about the need for subterfuge and the status of the victim.
Ofiori laid it bare in the next sentence.
“Damon had overheard rumors throughout the football season from players of some potentially inappropriate relationship between Julian (Willis) and a student,” Ofiori wrote in a sworn affidavit filed at the Snohomish County Courthouse.
From there, Damon Terry sought clarification from players, including his step son and another player.
His stepson suggested something was likely happening between Willis and a “known female student”. The victim would later tell detectives that she called Terry’s stepson in November of 2022, after the first incident of sexual assault and described it to him. Terry’s stepson said he recalled something more along the lines of flirting.
As J425 previously reported, this is where the actions of the coaches come under close inspection.
Washington State has a mandatory reporting law for allegations of sexual misconduct in public schools, and the criteria requiring notification are set incredibly low for a reason: the state didn’t want a bunch of assistant coaches and players conducting their own responses to issues as sensitive and urgent as trusted adults preying on minor females.
A detective writes in a sworn statement that Terry overheard rumors (plural) throughout the season from players. Rumors is plural. Players is plural. This triggers reporting requirements. From here, though, the detective is less precise. He states that Terry confirms the rumors and then notifies the head coach, but no dates are given.
We know, however, that the football season came to an end at the team banquet in mid November, 2022. So given that the detective says Terry had gleaned information from multiple players “throughout” the season, then Terry knew by Mid-November at the latest.
But if Terry and multiple players knew about Willis during the season, it begs the question why it took another four months for the allegations to reach the property authorities. Any adult with the level of knowledge described by the detective’s sworn statement had an absolute duty to act within 24 hours.
That action did not occur.
And as a result, Willis was allowed access to his prey on numerous occasions.
Willis returned to campus and served as a substitute in Coach Macc’s portable three times: 2/9/23, 2/27/23 and 3/23/23.
On each date, he sexually assaulted the underage volunteer football manager. In one case Willis brazenly pulled the girl out of a class already in progress, leading her over to an empty portable in clear view of anyone on school grounds that school day.
J425 has published the specifics of these crimes in prior reporting. And perhaps that set Terry off too. Because although Terry did not mention the victim or Willis one time during his criticism Saturday, Terry would demonstrate his awareness of mandatory reporting regulations moments later.
On Saturday, J425 got Terry to confirm, in public, that he did not pass on the Willis tips to Thomas until late March.
“But the police reports say you knew during the season,” Hulten pressed.
Terry filibustered and Hulten walked away, staying within earshot as Terry trotted out that vile cliche that’s come to define the culture of inaction and irresponsibility that enables predators to access their prey….Terry derisively told a colleague that he wasn’t about to ruin a guys career over some gossip, and in doing so verifying Detective Ofiori’s report that Terry worked to confirm the Willis allegations with players during the season.
“When I talk with teachers in schools where an abuser has been arrested, I hear admissions that they had suspected something but, because they were not completely sure, did not want to say anything. A common explanation for not reporting questionable behavior is, “If I reported and I was wrong, I would have ruined the life of another teacher.”I have never heard a colleague say, “If I didn’t report and this person had abused, I’d have ruined the life of a student.”
- Dr. Carol Shakeshaft, author of “Educator Sexual Misconduct, a Synthesis of Existing Literature”
To date, J425 is unaware of any effort by Kamiak High School leadership to investigate the four-plus month reporting delay between the surfacing of allegations and the suspension of Willis.
J425 previously called on Kamiak to conduct a top down investigation of the football program’s role in the Willis matter, from hiring through separation.
Such a probe would include a deliverable definitively identifying the key figures in (and adjacent to) KHS football during the 2022 season – as well as a full accounting of just who knew what when.
Neither is necessary, and J425 had obtained no comments from the program and district prior to publishing.
Ed. Note: The fact that he posited about his own safety and never mentioned the condition of the minor assault victim he remains sworn to prioritize is a microcosm of the tone deaf manner in which seasoned public school employees can dismiss something as continuum shattering as the assault of a child by a trusted friend or leader.