Two Cobb students, 13,
held in tainted cake incident
By DON PLUMMER, and YOLANDA RODRIGUEZ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/18/04
The cake was a noxious mix of
corn bread, bleach, glue and Tabasco sauce, covered with green icing made
from Play-Doh.
Police want to know: Was it a recipe for murder, or a prank gone awry?
Two Cobb County middle school students remain in juvenile detention today
after offering the cake to their classmates in the school cafeteria Tuesday
— sending at least 12 students to the hospital.
The girls, both 13, could learn Friday if they will face criminal charges of
attempted murder and whether they must remain in jail until a trial.
East Cobb Middle School student Cara Allen, 12, said she was offered a piece
of cake by one of the girls. She declined. "It just looked nasty," she said.
"It was, like, really green and slimy with sprinkles in it."
Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head said Wednesday he will await results
of tests on the cake before deciding if he will try the girls as adults or
reduce the charges police filed against them.
Neither girl has told police why they served the tainted cake to classmates,
authorities said. Juvenile Court Judge Steve Schuster ordered the two teens
to undergo psychiatric evaluation.
The sickened students, mostly seventh-graders, were treated and released
Tuesday from WellStar Kennestone Hospital.
The girls who concocted the nauseating treat told teachers and police they
made it after school Monday.
Cobb police Detective John McCraw said two mixing bowls with residue of the
cake mix and a green frosting were seized from the home of one of the girls.
One girl brought the cake to school Tuesday on the bus and first offered a
teacher a slice, police Detective Wayne Delk said. The teacher declined, but
allowed the girl to store the cake in a microwave oven until lunch period.
After several classmates had eaten the cake in the cafeteria, one of the
girls began telling them what was in it.
"We thought she was joking," said Cara Allen, the seventh-grader who
declined to partake of the cake. "But then people started getting sick."
The two girls were charged by police with multiple counts of aggravated
assault with the intent to commit murder, said police spokesman Cpl. Dana
Pierce.
One of the girls also was charged with committing terroristic acts and
interference with government property, Pierce said.
Father speaks out
After a court hearing Wednesday, the father of one of the teens said his
daughter suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism that causes her
to say inappropriate things and causes difficulty in relating to others.
"My hope is that this will be an opportunity for my daughter to get help . .
. and to be put in a special classroom so that she can function," the father
said.
He said he doesn't believe the girls intended to harm anyone.
"From my knowledge of the case there is no evidence of anyone's intent to
murder or to create any kind of terrorist act," he said. "These are
13-year-olds. It's a horrible prank."
On ABC's Good Morning America today, the father, identified only as "Alan,"
said, "These kids are not Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold," referring to the
Colorado teens who killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own
lives at Columbine High School in 1999.
"These are two 13-year-old girls who had extreme bad judgement in what was
funny and what was acceptable."
The father said he has "faith in the juvenile justice system in finding out
how best to treat these children."
"The school knew about her problems with judgement, and up until Monday,
they had a [teacher's aide] escorting her even to the restroom at school
every day that she was there, practically, because of the diagnosis that had
been made by school psychologists during the summer," he said.
The mother of the other girl declined to comment Wednesday and did not
appear on the morning news program.
"We don't understand why the girls would have done something like this,"
said Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb County school system. "It's
certainly something more serious than a prank."
Students and parents leaving East Cobb Middle School on Wednesday said
rumors and jokes about the cake were the talk of the school. Teachers did
not say much about the incident, students said.
Some students were scared or confused, classmates said. Others joked about
it — offering each other pieces of cake.
Principal Terry Stechmiller sent a letter home Tuesday with seventh-graders
that said the students who had become ill had complained of upset stomachs,
with nausea and vomiting.
He said poison control had been contacted and students had been taken to the
emergency room.
"Please monitor your children this evening," the letter said, "and contact
us if they develop any of these symptoms."
Robin Allen, Cara's mother, said school officials seemed to address the
incident quickly and let the parents of the seventh-graders know what had
happened. "I felt they were pretty open with it," she said.
But the parents of students in other grades found out about the incident
from their children or from news accounts.
Keisha Benson said she went to the school Wednesday hoping to speak to the
principal to find out what had happened, but was told by a school clerk:
"Don't worry about it. Everything's OK. Everything's OK."
School officials "were reluctant to give any information at all," said
Benson, whose daughter is in the sixth grade at the school. "It makes me
angry that you're not made aware of a situation, of something that could
have endangered my child."
Staff writer Mike Morris contributed to this article.
•
What is
Asperger's syndrome?
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/1104/18cake.html
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"I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical.
Even God had some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin."
~ Jerry Newport