Junior High Student Who Stabbed Teacher Given 8-Year Sentence

A ninth-grade student convicted of stabbing his Olive Vista Junior High School teacher in the back when she attempted to discipline him during class was sentenced Thursday to the California Youth Authority for eight years.

The 15-year-old youth was convicted last month of assault with a deadly weapon on a school employee after admitting to the March 6 stabbing of his English teacher, Cynthia Edwards, 37, of Palmdale. A 3-inch knife was embedded to the hilt in the back of Edward’s shoulder.

She was hospitalized for five days after the incident, and prosecutors said Thursday that she may never return to work because of the physical and psychological damage she has suffered.

Before the youth’s sentencing in Sylmar Juvenile Hall, Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig R. Richman read a letter that Edwards had written to the court:

“I am still enraged and frustrated when I think of such a senseless act that has plunged my life down a rather nebulous path toward the future,” the letter read. “Am I bitter? Am I angry? Yes. My career has possibly gone. Fifteen years of dedicated teaching has been violently pre-empted because a young man did not want to accept a meager punishment . . . for his disruptive behavior in class.”

Edwards, who has had only limited use of her right hand since the attack, wrote: “I am still in the initial recuperative stages, psychologically and physically, of my victimization in this mishap.”

Edwards had called the boy to the front of the classroom after he had disturbed other students discussing Homer’s “The Odyssey” by using profanity. The teacher was writing a referral slip to send the boy to another room for the remainder of the class when he walked up behind her and stabbed her in the back.

The boy showed no emotion as Judge Morton Rochman pronounced sentence at the end of the two-hour hearing attended by the youth’s parents and three sisters. Although committed for a maximum detention time of eight years at a California Youth Authority facility, a prison for young people, the boy could be eligible for parole in two to four years, authorities said.

The boy’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Mark R. Frazin, expressed disappointment with the judge’s decision to send his client to a Youth Authority facility. “The judge was responding to pressure from the public and not the needs of the minor,” Frazin said.

Counseling Urged

Earlier, Frazin argued that the boy needed extensive psychological counseling and should be placed in another, less severe county-run facility, where he could receive such help.

During the hearing, Frazin called several witnesses, including two Olive Vista Junior High School teachers, to testify on his client’s behalf.

Michael Williams, a physical education teacher, said that he had known the boy only a short time but that “he was always concerned about improving himself and becoming a better athlete.”

Teacher Rochele Minutella said she had known the youth for three years and had a close relationship with him. Minutella described the boy as “very loving and warm.”

Minutella said the boy had come to her before the stabbing and complained to her about Edwards, saying that the teacher was harassing him. Minutella said that the boy “asked for help to get out” of Edwards’ class but that the “school didn’t respond to his need for help.”

‘Not a Violent Person’

She said when the boy came to her immediately after the stabbing and told her what he had done, “I didn’t believe him because he is not a violent person.”

However, Richman said, since the youth was taken into custody, he has engaged in several fights with Juvenile Hall employees.

Richman said that on April 7 the boy allegedly threatened to kill staff members when he is finally released from custody. In another incident on April 20, the boy had to be restrained from hitting employees, Richman said.