Teacher pleads not guilty in bomb threats

Kim Smith

Monday, Dec. 4, 2000 | 11:20 a.m.

An April preliminary hearing date has been set for a Silverado High School teacher who police say has confessed to making false bomb threats at the school.

Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis set the April 2 hearing after Dylena Pierce's attorney, Bill Terry, waived her appearance and entered a not guilty plea on her behalf this morning.

According to Metro Police reports, Pierce, an English teacher, reported finding four threatening notes within a seven-day period at the end of October.

The first note, which Pierce said she found in her mailbox on Oct. 25, said that a bomb was going to go off soon. The school was evacuated twice and a bomb squad responded to the school with the police and fire departments.

The second and third notes were supposedly found Oct. 26 and Oct. 29 by Pierce. According to police reports, the notes "described a threat and problems in the future, but no specific threat."

Pierce told police she pulled a fire alarm at the school on Halloween after finding the fourth note, which was written in poem form, in her basket. The bomb squad was again called and school was canceled.

According to the Metro report, police began suspecting a staff member was behind the incidents and set up interviews, finger-printing sessions and polygraph examinations with Pierce and another teacher.

The other teacher was eliminated as a suspect, but Pierce canceled her polygraph examination, police reports indicate. During an interview the next day, Nov. 3, Pierce confessed to an FBI agent that she had composed all four notes.

Pierce then asked for permission to speak to her principal, and she was allowed to go to the high school to do so.

"She then confessed to (the principal) that she had sent all four notes, that she typed them at home and that she has since destroyed the computers and printers she typed them on," the police report states. "She indicated that all pieces were disposed of at various locations throughout the valley."

Pierce told her boss that she was seeking mental health help, the report states. She was then handcuffed and arrested.

Pierce was charged with two counts of making bomb threats and two counts of turning in false fire alarms.

The bomb threat charges are felonies punishable by one to six years in prison and up to a $5,000 fine. The fire alarm charges, which are misdemeanors, are punishable by up to one year in jail and up to a $2,000 fine.

Calls to Eddie Goldman, the assistant superintendent of operations and staff relations for the Clark County School District, were not returned this morning.