Razor Planter Gets Jail Time

A Mission Viejo woman placed on probation after planting razor blades, glass shards and nails in city parks and playgrounds was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison because she appeared to have been preparing for a similar crime spree.

A sheriff’s deputy who pulled over Lori Elizabeth Fischer, 24, in September discovered 1 pound of nails on her back seat, violating the probation terms set in 2003 after she admitted burying nearly 200 sharp objects at several Orange County playgrounds.

“She’s repeatedly shown herself to be a grave danger to the community, specifically to children,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Renee Lewis. “It was our first and foremost obligation and the obligation of the court to protect the community.”

Law enforcement officials had been monitoring Fischer because she had called them earlier that day and told them she might do something dangerous. She told the deputy who picked her up that she had not been taking the medication prescribed to control her mental illness.

She was placed under psychiatric observation at a Cerritos hospital and was arrested upon her release.

In a previous jailhouse interview with The Times, Fischer, who worked as a clerk at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Laguna Niguel, called herself a loner and said she had often been mistreated while growing up in Mission Viejo. She said she enjoyed late-night strolls at parks and had no anger toward children.

“I relax at night,” she told a reporter. “During the day, there’s too many people and their dogs. At night, I think about a lot of things. A lot of things run through my mind.”

When she was convicted of the 18 felony counts of child abuse and assault with a deadly weapon, the prosecutor had urged the judge to sentence her to the maximum of 11 years in prison.