Hearing set for accused Thurmont Middle teacher

Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005

A court hearing has been set for Jan. 23 for the Thurmont Middle School teacher who was arrested Dec. 22 on 11 counts of making bomb threats to and stalking students.

Michelle J. Dohm, 40, posted $100,000 bail Friday using property as collateral, said Frederick County State’s Attorney Scott Rolle (R).

Dohm denies the charges against her, and has appeared on national television to defend herself, and the story has appeared in newspapers throughout the country.

‘‘I think the evidence they have is not really evidence,” Dohm said in a phone interview Tuesday. ‘‘I have no motive against these boys. They’re friends with my son. I like these boys. They were my students and they played at my house. I couldn’t even think of a reason why I would ruin my career just to send notes.”

Dohm is a Cub Scout leader, and has been a soccer coach and Sunday School teacher.

Dohm is the sole suspect in the case, Rolle said. ‘‘Of course, the investigation is ongoing,” he said. ‘‘But no other information has come in at this point.”

By law, criminal defendants have to be brought to trial within 180 days of receiving their indictment and bench hearing. Dohm will be able to choose a trial by jury or have just a judge hear her case. ‘‘I’m guessing we’ll see a May trial date,” Rolle said.

On Dec. 22, a grand jury indicted Dohm on nine counts of false statement of a destructive device and two counts of stalking. She was arrested later that day.

The background leading up to Dohm’s indictment is as follows, according to Rolle:

On Sept. 28, Dohm brought a note to the school administration, which she said she received from a parent while she was on bus duty. Dohm told administrators the woman who handed her the note had a blonde ponytail, and drove a white van. The note stated that her son was being bullied by two boys, and accused them of having knives in their lockers. A letter attached to the note had magazine cutout words like ‘‘boom,” ‘‘die,” ‘‘bound,” and ‘‘tied” attached to it.

Police were not able to find the woman Dohm described.

The next day, one of the students accused of bullying in the letter found a knife and beer in his locker. He and another student informed the principal that they found the items in his locker. When the father of one of the boys mentioned in the initial note went out to get his newspaper at 5:30 a.m. about a week later, he found a note on his van that said, ‘‘Play No. 20 and 24 and die.” The note may have referred to the two boys’ baseball jersey numbers. According to the boy’s father, Dohm walks past the house every morning around 5:30.

In October, four students found notes in their lockers that read: ‘‘Tick tock, tick tock. Is it a bomb or is it a clock? You ignored the note on the van, Now I will carry out my plan.” The notes were printed from Dohm’s work computer.

On a teacher’s conference day in November on which students were out of school, a custodian found two notes sticking out from students’ lockers. The custodian saw Dohm in the school earlier that day, and remembered wondering to himself what she was doing there. These letters also used magazine cutouts with the words ‘‘hit list,” and named several students, and ended in ‘‘boom, boom, kill.”

The next morning, teachers found two of the same style notes on students’ lockers.

All of the threatening letters were stapled and folded in a unique fashion that looked like a homemade envelope, and a teacher who found one of the letters noticed Dohm had a similar letter in her possession. When the teacher questioned her about it, she said it was a school project she was working on, and put it away.

Frederick County Public Schools officials conducted an investigation that pointed to Dohm as the possible source of the threatening notes, and her status in the school system became ‘‘inactive” without pay when the school system concluded its investigation of her Nov. 18.

Dohm told school administrators that if another note showed up after she was gone, they would know it was not her. On Nov. 21, a letter was found in the boys’ bathroom, which stated: ‘‘Tick, tock, tick tock. Now you’ll know it’s a bomb and not a clock. At 12 you’ll know I wasn’t kidding.” This note was not folded to look like an envelope.

Students were immediately evacuated to a ball field behind the school, and were then taken inside the American Legion building because it was raining.

The maximum penalty someone found guilty of making bomb threats could get is a 10-year jail term and $10,000 fine for each count. The stalking counts in this case refer to putting someone in fear of bodily harm on more than one occasion, and carry a maximum five-year jail term and $5,000 fine each.

Dohm’s attorney, Thomas Morrow of Towson, said in a phone interview Tuesday that he suspects a youth wrote the notes as a practical joke, but did not have any intention of framing her. ‘‘It seems that the nature of these documents is a relatively juvenile approach,” Morrow said. ‘‘My guess is the notes came from someone in the community who did not realize the consequences or the seriousness of these types of notes. It’s hard for me to believe that there is someone out there in the community that is intentionally trying to bring these accusations upon her.”

Dohm taught sixth-grade social studies and integrated studies at Thurmont Middle, and had been with the school since 1992, said Marita Loose, spokeswoman for Frederick County Public Schools. She has been with Frederick County Public Schools since she was hired in 1987 to teach at New Market Middle School. Loose said she could not comment on whether Dohm has any prior complaints against her or other administrative disciplinary action in her file with the school system.