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Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

No Charges for Kid’s|Gruesome Online Story

ROANOKE, Texas (CN) - A prosecutor has decided not to criminally charge the eighth grader who posted a story that describes gruesome stabbings and sexual assaults of classmates.

Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said her office reviewed an online blog that scared hundreds of parents into keeping their children home from John Tidwell Middle School in the Northwest Independent School District.

"Although the blog in question contains many disturbing, graphic and offensive descriptions of violence, it does not meet the legal requirements for a charge of criminal or delinquent conduct under Texas law," Wilson said in a statement Wednesday.

The unidentified student posted an 11-part story online titled "Killing Children," ABC-affiliate WFAA reported.

Approximately 170 students did not go to school Monday after the blogger returned to class after spring break. Several parents stood outside the school that day, protesting his return.

School officials said they cannot discipline the blogger because the story was not written on or with school property.

The Denton County Sheriff's Department sent the case to Wilson's office because the story is believed to have been written in Tarrant County.

School officials said they learned of the postings on Feb. 26, a snow day.

Parents of students named in the stories were notified the next day; the remaining students' parents were informed on March 20.

Northwest Independent School District spokesman Jerry Cantu told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the student wrote the story before he became a student in the school district.

"We understand the parents were extremely upset by this, but at the same time, the student did not violate any code of conduct in the student handbook," Cantu said.

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