The Howard County high school teacher who claimed to have been stabbed and robbed in her school office in September actually stabbed herself, according to county police and school sources.
Howard police yesterday released a terse statement saying only that the teacher admits that her report of the Sept. 27 assault was "unfounded." While a police spokesman and Chief James N. Robey refused to comment further, police and school sources said the teacher's wound was self-inflicted.
The statement by county police allays school safety concerns prompted in Howard County by the incident, in which the teacher claimed she was attacked before the start of school by two young males.
But the announcement raises questions about the Police Department's handling of the case -- particularly its delay in telling the public there was no attack, when high-ranking police sources say investigators have known for weeks the teacher stabbed herself.
County police are not charging the teacher -- Kathleen J. Johnston, 46, a health and physical education instructor at Howard High School in Ellicott City -- with filing a false report. Police would not explain why yesterday.
However, the police spokesman,Sgt. Steven Keller, denied police actions in the teacher's case were affected by the department's embarrassment over a 1992 case in which police wrongly accused a rape victim of lying. A national TV news show, ABC's "PrimeTime Live," recently came to Howard County to report on that mistake, a report that's not yet aired.
At Ms. Johnston's Elkridge home yesterday, her husband, James Johnston -- also a teacher at Howard High -- said they had no comment. In an earlier brief conversation with a reporter in late October, he appeared surprised to hear that police believed her wound was self-inflicted and denied his wife had stabbed herself.
Ms. Johnson has been on medical leave from her job since the incident.
Her future in the school system was not clear yesterday, said Eugene L. Streagle Jr., Howard High principal.
She has been seeking unsuccessfully for at least five years to retire from the Howard schools with a disability pension for a claimed blood disorder, according to police and school sources.
The teacher also has a worker's compensation case pending against the school system for an accident in which she bumped her shin while standing on a desk, according to state records. Coincidentally, the records show that the claimed accident occurred Sept. 27, 1993 -- exactly a year prior to the stabbing incident.
At Howard High yesterday, the police statement was read aloud by teachers in every class at the beginning of the day. The principal, Mr. Streagle, said he's relieved police finally had brought "to a close" the teacher's case.
Story spurred safety calls
"Initially, there were a number of calls here and to the central administration building concerned about safety in the school," he said. "But that sort of died down as word got around that the assault and robbery never really happened.
"The rumor had been going on long enough that pretty much everybody knew it, but it is good to have it confirmed by the police and laid to rest," Mr. Streagle said
At the time of the incident, fears among students and staff prompted Howard High officials to review its security measures and make some changes in how the school opens and closes each day, Mr. Streagle said. Those changes will remain in place.
Despite the widespread rumors that Ms. Johnston's story was false -- and the physical evidence indicating that she had stabbed herself -- police continued to say her case was being investigated as an assault and robbery for more than two months.
Teacher found on floor
A teacher at the school for 21 years, Ms. Johnston was discovered lying semiconscious in her ground-floor office at 6:45 a.m. on Sept. 27 -- about 15 minutes after she later said she had arrived at school.
She had a stab wound in her abdomen, police said. She later told police she also had been hit twice over the head with an unidentified object. She said that two young men had attacked her and stole an undetermined amount of cash, but was unable to provide further description.
From the very beginning of the police investigation into the incident, high-ranking police sources say, detectives did not believe that she had been attacked -- primarily because of physical evidence suggesting the wound was self-inflicted. The police sources say that evidence included:
* The 8-inch serrated knife used in the attack was found lying next to the woman.
* "Hesitation marks" -- tiny, tentative cuts -- were found around the abdomen wound, suggesting it was caused by someone reluctant to cut rather than an attacker.
* Drops of blood were found in the closet of the victim's office, but the teacher told police nothing about being assaulted in the closet.
Wound termed minor
The teacher's knife wound was more of a slice than a stab. Police sources say emergency room doctors considered it so minor they suggested she could leave the hospital one hour after she entered -- though she stayed overnight. There was no medical evidence that she had been hit on the head, police sources say.
Despite this evidence, the detectives initially were ordered by top police officials not to confront Ms. Johnston or file a false report charge against her, police sources say.
There was a concern among police officials that filing a false report charge in the teacher's case could give the network TV show "PrimeTime Live" more ammunition when it airs its investigation of county police actions in the 1992 rape case, police sources say. In that case, police said the victim was lying -- until her rapist was caught in a second rape.
Sergeant Keller, the Howard police spokesman, yesterday denied that the rape case outcome had caused police to delay acting sooner in the teacher's case.
But in an Oct. 6 interview with a Sun reporter, Sergeant Keller acknowledged investigators were hesitant about doubting another victim's story in the wake of the rape case.
"What happens tomorrow if another teacher is assaulted and they [potential suspects] say, 'Yeah, we did that one, too'?" he said.