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Girls in trouble for tampering with teacher's drink

April 2, 2008

Dawson --  Just a day after Waycross students were charged in a plot to kill their teacher, a second south Georgia school reveals a plot to poison a teacher's drink.  It happened at Carver Elementary in Dawson in February.  The investigation is still ongoing.

The four students, ages 10 through 12, told police it was only Tylenol, but police say it's a serious offense.

Parents in Dawson were aware of the Waycross student's plot to harm their teacher, what many didn't realize was four students at Carver Elementary in February hatched their own sinister plot to harm a fifth grade teacher. 

"I'm really shocked about it, mostly disappointed, because it really surprises you when a child does that," said Carver Elementary grandparent Shirley Lewis.   

The Terrell County Superintendent is out of the district and because of that Miss Williams the principal here, says she can't speak with us, but the police report says three fifth graders put something in their teachers drink. "Somebody put some Tylenol in it," said Dawson Police Chief Charles Whitehead.

Although police haven't tested the drink, they're taking the students word that it was just Tylenol. One fifth grader told School Resource Officer Corporal Alisa Colwell she brought the bottle of Tylenol to school. Three other girls, took two and a half pills and put them in teacher Dana Fox's drink and cup of ice.

Another student who saw what happened spoke up before Fox took a drink.  "Certain things are zero tolerance when it comes to the school system," Whitehead said. "This just happens to be one of them."

When asked why they did it, the 10, 11, and 12 year old girls told Corporal Colwell their teacher Miss Fox had rolled her eyes at the girls and they felt she was prejudiced against them.

The girls are black and Fox is white.

Police say while the Tylenol likely wouldn't have made Fox sick, the girls intent was malicious and the act was criminal.  "It's the act that you have to take serious," Whitehead said.

All four girls are charged with aggravated assault and were scheduled to appear in juvenile court last week, but the case was delayed.

One of the students has been moved from Dana Fox's class, but the other three remain in the classroom.

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