Detention hearings were held Friday for the four juvenile students arrested Wednesday in connection with a bomb threat at Carolina Forest High School that led to the evacuation of the school.
The names of the juvenile suspects are not being released. They range in age from 14 to 16 and are charged with Conveying False Information Regarding Attempted use of a Destructive Device.
Two 18-year-old students, Jason William Taylor and Lorenzo Terrell Green, are both charged with Accessory Before the Fact of a Felony. They are out on bond.
Judge Ronald Norton is presiding over the hearing that led to three of the juvenile cases being continued. The fourth juvenile, a 15-year-old boy has pleaded guilty. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 8.
During the detention hearing, Assistant Solicitor Mike Freeman told the judge the six students wrote a bomb threat on a note they placed in a boy's bathroom.
Freeman said the students left the note in a spot where they thought it would be easily seen, but they checked back later and no one had picked it up. One student then took the note to a teacher, claiming he had just found it.
That student is the one who pleaded guilty Friday.
"He admitted that he knew what was on the note and he was the one who handed it to the teacher," Freeman said.
Of the four juveniles involved in the bomb threat, three had their detention hearings delayed until next Tuesday, mostly to give their lawyers more time to prepare.
Freeman said the fourth student, the 15-year-old freshman, gets mostly A's in school and has not been in trouble before.
Now, after pleading guilty to communicating a bomb threat, Freeman said the juvenile could spend years in detention.
"He could get placed with DJJ, for an indeterminate period until his 21st birthday."
Judge Norton said it's a shame a good student got caught up in this situation, but it's too serious to brush over lightly. The solicitor's office agrees.
"We're taking it very seriously," Freeman said. "We're at a time where kids are trying to get ready for exams and they're being disrupted, they're missing a half day to a whole day for an incident like this."
All the students involved in the threat could be expelled from school. That will be up to school administrators, who have not scheduled a hearing on it.
School administrators are asking for the public's help in solving the recent bomb threats. Anyone who has information leading to the identity of the suspect(s) involved in any of this week's bomb threats at Horry County schools is strongly encouraged to use the Horry County School Crime Tip Line at 915-SROS (7707) over the weekend. Or, you can send an email to srotips@horrycounty.org.
