It was not immediately clear if Mr. Fox had a lawyer and there was no phone number listed for him.

Mr. White’s lead lawyer, Richard S. Jaffe, on Monday declined to comment as Mr. White’s defense team weighed a response to a number of requests from news media outlets.

Mr. White resigned from his teaching position last week , according to Sheriff Wade, who said that investigators were looking into his abrupt departure from another school district in Alabama in 2018 and that there was a subpoena for those records.

The Calhoun County school superintendent, Donald Turner, did not respond to an email requesting comment.

The three friends, each of whom is 18, said they told Mr. White “multiple times” in different chats that they were either 14 or 17. Mr. White, they said, went to the Walmart after they posed as a 17-year-old.

They got the idea for their amateur sting from watching a YouTube channel known as Predator Poachers. Their version is called Hive vs. Predator and opens with a heavy metal guitar riff.

The techniques used by the three recalled “To Catch a Predator,” a reality television news show that aired more than a decade ago with Chris Hansen luring men to homes where they were confronted on hidden camera and then arrested.

The teenagers said they hadn’t given much thought to the potential danger of their actions.

“I think during the moment that never really crossed our mind because of all of the adrenaline that was pumping,” Mr. Waller said.