The State - News from April 8, 1987

The Emeryville school board censured one of its members after the district superintendent filed a police report saying the member threatened to hire a hit man to kill him and a witch to hex him. School board Vice President Rita Dixon was accused of making the threats against Supt. Peter Corona and of harassing high school teachers. She denied the charges, calling them the work of “a deranged mind.” But Corona said a woman who works with Dixon at a travel agency told him Dixon “was having a professional witch put a curse on me” and had been trying to hire someone to murder him. Corona said he did not know at first whether to take the call seriously, but later concluded that “death threats are serious and only a fool wouldn’t take them seriously.”