Teacher Gets 7 Years for Firebombing

Tearfully admitting her role in the conspiracy, a Dana Point schoolteacher was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison for hiring a band of mercenaries to firebomb the cars of two former employees.

Elizabeth Leta Hamilton, 39, co-owner of a chain of preparatory schools in Orange and San Bernardino counties, was placed on an additional five years’ probation for her guilty plea in a bizarre case that drew two teachers into a web of violence.

“I’ve felt from the beginning there was no way out for me on this,” Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler, her voice cracking with emotion. “I pleaded guilty knowing I was guilty of a conspiracy.”

Faced Problems

Hamilton and her roommate, Charlotte Ruth Wyckoff, 52, were facing a series of labor problems at their seven California Learning Centers in 1983 and 1984, when several teachers filed complaints with the state about overcrowding, understaffing and inadequate food service at the schools.

Three teachers who had made similar complaints to the owners were fired. The firings were followed by a wave of vandalism at the schools that has never been explained.

The two women said they hired Alabama mercenary camp owner Frank J. Camper and his cohorts to “investigate” the former employees. But federal prosecutors said the women knew Camper was a man who “deals in death, destruction and intimidation” and should not have been surprised when the cars of two former teachers in San Bernardino County were blown up with crude homemade napalm bombs on Aug. 13, 1985.

“I don’t think when they contacted Franklin Camper, someone who ran a mercenary training school, someone who trained people in assassinations, it was simply to come to California to find some addresses,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. David Wiechert.

Federal prosecutors had sought a sentence of between six and eight years for Hamilton’s guilty pleas to one count of racketeering and one count of being an accessory to a firebombing.

“The court is not in the business of necessarily assessing culpability,” Judge Stotler said, noting that Hamilton is “a viable woman, a woman with a young child and much to get on with in her life.”

But, the judge added, “these are serious offenses, and, in fact, grave and threatening harm took place.”

Other Cases Pending

Wyckoff has not yet been sentenced. Camper, his girlfriend, Lee Ann Faulk, and one of his associates, William Hedgcorth, are currently in their second trial on conspiracy, racketeering and firebombing charges. Camper has claimed he was in California to negotiate a movie contract and to help the two schoolteachers track down the source of the vandalism at the schools.

Their first trial ended in a mistrial in November when the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of conviction.

Two other former employees of Camper originally named in the indictment, Paul Johnson and James Cuneo, have admitted planting the bombs and agreed to testify against the others.