Middle-School Teacher Who Was Being Poisoned by Her Students: 'A Lot of Them Aren't Too Keen on Math'
A middle-school teacher in Virginia says she had no clue she was being slowly poisoned with hand sanitizer that was being surreptitiously added to her tea by two of her students, but says she has been feeling ill for some time.
"My stomach would bother me," Jane Miller of Newport News told ABC News. "I was running a low-grade temperature. I was just exhausted by the time I got home."
The 66-year-old was the victim of an apparent poisoning attempt orchestrated by two 13-year-old students in her math review class.
Those students now face felony charges and have been removed from Hines Middle School, where Miller has been a teacher for over 40 years.
"I was shocked and I couldn't quite process it fast enough to realize what it meant," she said of learning from two female students that her drink was being spiked with Germ X by two male students.
The motive behind the unnamed teens' alleged envenoming remains unknown.
"Its hard to get into an adolescent's mind," Miller said. "The class I teach was math review, and a lot of them aren't too keen on math and they don't really want to be there."
The accused students were placed in an alternative school shortly after their suspension.
They are being charged with attempted poisoning, a Class 3 felony which carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
