Officials Uncover First-Grade Murder Plot
http://news.excite.com/news/r/000413/13/news-crime-schoolgirls
Updated 1:45 PM ET April 13, 2000
LAKE STATION, Ind. (Reuters) - Three first-grade girls have been suspended from an Indiana school after investigators uncovered what may have been a plot by them to kill another girl in the same class, police said on Thursday.
"These are just babies. I can't even fathom what they're even thinking about," Lake Station Police Chief Jim Strine said.
No weapons were found and no charges are likely to be filed against the three who attended Virgil Bailey school in this northwestern Indiana village, he said.
But investigators said they had recovered drawings that appeared to depict the school and a wooded area nearby, and that the girls had discussed shooting or stabbing the intended 7-year-old victim after taking her to the woods.
School officials said the three were suspended for three days but may not return to school until they have been evaluated and declared not to pose a danger. Their names and ages were not released.
A parent of another student in the class alerted police to the alleged plot.
It was not clear why the girl had been picked as a target but the Times newspaper in nearby Munster reported in its Thursday edition that one parent said his daughter had been asked by one of the three girls to join a "hate club" against the intended victim.
The parent, Doug Greider, said his daughter did not want to talk about the matter because she was afraid of being hurt herself.
"There were a lot of girls involved in this," Greider told the newspaper. "This was going to happen, no matter what."
Schools in the United States have been hit with a rash of similar scares, and in February a 6-year-old boy shot and killed a classmate in Michigan with a gun he brought to school from home.
http://news.excite.com/news/r/000413/13/news-crime-schoolgirls
Updated 1:45 PM ET April 13, 2000
LAKE STATION, Ind. (Reuters) - Three first-grade girls have been suspended from an Indiana school after investigators uncovered what may have been a plot by them to kill another girl in the same class, police said on Thursday.
"These are just babies. I can't even fathom what they're even thinking about," Lake Station Police Chief Jim Strine said.
No weapons were found and no charges are likely to be filed against the three who attended Virgil Bailey school in this northwestern Indiana village, he said.
But investigators said they had recovered drawings that appeared to depict the school and a wooded area nearby, and that the girls had discussed shooting or stabbing the intended 7-year-old victim after taking her to the woods.
School officials said the three were suspended for three days but may not return to school until they have been evaluated and declared not to pose a danger. Their names and ages were not released.
A parent of another student in the class alerted police to the alleged plot.
It was not clear why the girl had been picked as a target but the Times newspaper in nearby Munster reported in its Thursday edition that one parent said his daughter had been asked by one of the three girls to join a "hate club" against the intended victim.
The parent, Doug Greider, said his daughter did not want to talk about the matter because she was afraid of being hurt herself.
"There were a lot of girls involved in this," Greider told the newspaper. "This was going to happen, no matter what."
Schools in the United States have been hit with a rash of similar scares, and in February a 6-year-old boy shot and killed a classmate in Michigan with a gun he brought to school from home.