CONVICTED: Threatening to bomb small children.
Jan 31, 2008 - Susan Romanyszyn, 45, a fourth-grade teacher at Longstreth
Elementary School, is charged with 17 counts of terrorist threats.
Police said Romanyszyn left over a dozen threatening notes at the Warminster school.MyFox reports that officials allege Romanyszyn was upset about not getting a fifth grade teaching position she wanted. The threats caused police to search the school and to station extra officers there for the past four months.
Police said she wrote on schools walls and wrote "die kill them all" on one occasion. Police allege Romanyszyn left a water bottle in the school on another occasion that contained a white substance and screws. (Found by a fifth grader in his desk.)
The investigation began in October 2007 and Romanyszyn was placed on administrative leave after becoming a suspect in the threats. Police believe Romanyszyn, who reportedly taught at the school for three years, was making the threats in retaliation for being passed over for a job.
Investigators received a break in the case when a fingerprint on one of the threatening notes matched Romanyszyn's.
Police allege Romanyszyn left nails in the teachers' parking lot, made a makeshift bomb with screws and did drawings of a gun, a machete and a pipe.
Reportedly, she was a state-level finalist for Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching when she taught at Klinger Middle School.
Jan 31 - By threatening the school’s teachers and leaving a suspected bomb in a fifth-grade classroom, Romanyszyn figured a fifth-grade teacher would quit and she could become the replacement, according to Warminster Police Chief Michael Murphy.
Romanyszyn's lawer said,
“In a case like this you go on a person’s character, and the character of this woman is out there for inspection,” [Romanyszyn's attorney, Sara] Webster said. “Nobody says she’s an angry person. She loved what she did, and she loved her students, and she always got good evaluations.”Webster said Romanyszyn was arrested because police were under tremendous pressure to close the case, but didn’t have enough evidence to prove who had done it.
TT - Spoken like a teacher union attorney because a teacher's evaluations are irrelevant to anyone but a union-supplied attorney.
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TT - This isn't the first teacher to threaten a school with bombs. When Caroline Flumana, a teacher in Delaware was arrested in November, she was the third teacher last year who was arrested for making a bomb threat at a public school. (Found not guilty.)
A Ludlow, Massachusetts teacher was indicted after police examined video footage. The judge ruled the videotape inadmissible, forcing prosecutors to drop the charge.
Thermond, Maryland teacher Michelle Dohm was convicted of making death threats against students. She left threatening notes, including one that read, "Tick-tock, tick-tock, is it a bomb or is it a clock?" She was sentenced to nine months in prison. The judge also ordered Dohm to get psychological counseling.
We called Dohm the Twilight Zone teacher when she appeared on NBC to deny the charges.
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PRELIMINARY HEARING March 14 - Romanyszyn was in court for a preliminary hearing. Judge Daniel Finello held all charges over for trial. She , will be arraigned on April 11. Romanyszyn remains out on bail after posting $100,000 of a $1 million bail.
TRIAL June 18 - Romanyszyn is scheduled for trial today.
TRIAL June 19 - Her attorney tried to have the courtroom closed to the public yesterday until a jury could be chosen and instructed not to read news accounts of the trial. The judge refused the request.
TRIAL June 24 - Handwriting expert testifies for the defense.
GUILTY VERDICT June 26 - Romanyszyn was found guilty today of eleven counts of planting terrorizing notes throughout Longstreth Elementary School last fall when she was a fourth-grade teacher there.The jury deliberated for eleven hours yesterday and today before reaching its verdict. They was found her not guilty of creating a fake bomb and on other threat counts. Of those 11 terroristic threats charges for which she was found guilty, nine are felonies and two are misdemeanors because in nine cases, the jury concluded, the school building was disrupted by the threats.
Judge Rea Boylan postponed Romanyszyn's sentencing until she could get a psychiatric evaluation. During that time, Romanyszyn, who has been free after posting 10 percent of $1 million bail, will be on house arrest.
