Tom GantertAvon Park, FL – Two 14-year-old girls in Florida were arrested after a teacher learned about the teens’ plans to kill nine people.
The Highlands County School Board stated that the students were taken into custody on Wednesday for “a possible plan to harm others off campus,” according to CNN.
A teacher saw the two girls acting in a “hysterical” manner when they were searching for a folder in a classroom, according to the arrest report.
The 14-year-old girls were worried they could be arrested, the teacher told police, if the folder was found. One of the girls said, “I’m just going to tell them it’s a prank if they call me or if they find it,” according to CNN.
The teacher found the folder and there was a letter inside that mentioned guns, according to the arrest report.
The folder contained eight pieces of paper that had written plans to get gun, kill nine people on their hit list, and then dispose of the bodies, CNN reported.
Each of the teen girls face nine counts of conspiracy to commit murder and three counts of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, CNN reported.
Andrew Lethbridge, the Highlands County School System Deputy Superintendent, told WFLA that the district took the threats very seriously.
The school district said that all the families involved in the incident have been contacted, according to WFLA.
“Whether it’s in print or something that we say, it matters, and we are held accountable for those words,” Lethbridge said, according to WFLA.
Javier Maldonado has a child who is a student at the middle school and says many parents knew about the hit list.
“I mean it’s crazy, a small town and people are getting crazy now days and especially you would think at a high school, but a middle school is pretty tough, right,” said Maldonado, according to WFLA.