Charges Against Fullerton Teacher Upped to Murder

Criminal charges against a Fullerton high school teacher were upgraded to first-degree murder Friday after one of the women she is accused of shooting on June 1 died in a Pasadena hospital.

Janet Ruth Greene, a 51-year-old former teacher of the year at Sunny Hills High School, allegedly shot her ex-lover, Loretta Coller, 62, of Glendora, and Coller’s current companion, Martha Pereida, 49, of Alhambra, in Coller’s home.

Coller, a retired teacher who was shot in the upper chest and whose spinal cord was severed by the bullet, died at 1 a.m. Friday at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, said Glendora Police Sgt. Tim Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer said that Coller died of complications that set in as a result of the gunshot wound. She had been in a coma for the past four or five days, he said.

Pereida, who was shot in the leg, was treated for her wound and released from a local hospital shortly after the attack. Greene still faces an attempted murder charge in the shooting of Pereida.

At her arraignment Monday, Greene pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted murder. She is being held at the Sybil Brand Institute for Women in Los Angeles in lieu of $300,000 bail. Her preliminary hearing has been set for Aug. 5.