Tamekia Anderson v Commonwealth

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: 	Chief Judge Moon, Judge Annunziata and
Senior Judge Hodges
Argued at Richmond, Virginia
TAMEKIA ANDERSON
v. 	Record No. 1923-94-2 	MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY
JUDGE WILLIAM H. HODGES
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 	AUGUST 1, 1995
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF GOOCHLAND COUNTY
James M. Lumpkin, Judge Designate
John M. Williamson for appellant.
Monica S. McElyea, Assistant Attorney General
(James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on
brief), for appellee.
The appellant, Tamekia Anderson, was convicted in a bench
trial of threatening to bomb a nursing home in violation of Code
§ 18.2-83. 	On appeal, she contends that (1) because the note
placed in the suggestion box remained in the box until someone
retrieved it at a future time, she neither communicated the
threat or possessed a present intention to injure anyone, and (2)
the threat was not credible and was conditional. 	We disagree and
affirm.
"On appeal, we review the evidence in the light most
favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable
inferences fairly deducible therefrom." 	Martin v. Commonwealth,
4 Va. App. 438, 443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). 	Catherine Renee
Zahn is the office manager at the Meadows Nursing Home. 	She
*Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010, this opinion is not designated
for publication.

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testified that she collects all communications placed in the
nursing home's suggestion box on the eighth day of every month.
On May 8, 1993, Zahn found an anonymous note in the suggestion
box with the following message:
TO: 	The Administrator
I have a suggestion! 	Blow this hellhole up &
make sure Julia is in here when the place
blows. 	If you don't do it -- I will. 	So
watch out and tell Julia her days are
numbered.
The director of nursing was Julia McNeese. 	Zahn indicated
that "an investigation [was conducted] trying to find out who
originally had written that note." 	Handwriting samples from
personnel files were studied without success. 	Pamela Dozier, the
executive director of the nursing home, testified that, in late
June of 1993, she received a facsimile from the nursing home's
corporate headquarters of an employee questionnaire that had been
sent to the corporate office. 	The unsigned questionnaire
contained threats to "cause serious bodily harm" to "Pam and
Julia" and was written in the same handwriting as the original
note.
Chief Investigator Parrish conducted an investigation to
find the person who wrote the note. 	On August 10, 1993,
officials at the nursing home contacted Parrish and informed him
that they had received a note in the suggestion box suggesting
that a change machine be installed in the employee's lounge.
This note was unsigned and written in the same handwriting as the
May 8 note. 	By offering a reward to the person who suggested the

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change machine, officials discovered that appellant wrote both
notes for her mother, who was an employee at the nursing home.
Parrish confronted appellant, and she admitted writing the notes.
Code § 18.2-83 provides, in pertinent part:
Any person who (a) makes and communicates to
another by any means any threat to bomb,
burn, destroy or in any manner damage any
place of assembly, building or other
structure . . . shall be guilty of a Class 1
misdemeanor.
"A threat, in the criminal context, is recognized to be a
communication avowing an intent to injure another's person or
property. 	The communication, taken in its particular context,
must reasonably cause the receiver to believe that the speaker
will act according to his expression of intent." 	Perkins v.
Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 7, 16, 402 S.E.2d 229, 234 (1991). 	A
threat "'is defined as an avowed present determination or intent
to injure presently or in the future.'" 	Parnell v. Commonwealth,
15 Va. App. 342, 423 S.E.2d 834 (1992).
Appellant asserts that because the note may have been placed
in the suggestion box at some point after it was last emptied on
April 8, 1993, and remained there for up to thirty days before
the box was emptied on May 8, 1993, the note failed to possess
the immediacy required to fit within the definition of a threat.
Specifically, appellant contends that the indictment charged

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that she threatened to bomb the nursing home on May 8, 1993, but,
because the note was written up to thirty days before that date,
there was insufficient evidence that she still intended to bomb
the nursing home on May 8. 	Appellant argues that "there is
simply no way of telling what the Appellant's intentions,
feelings, or emotions were on May 8, 1993." 	She also contends
that because the nursing home was not bombed before she was
discovered as the anonymous writer and apprehended, she no longer
intended to carry out the bombing.
"Intent may, and most often must, be proven by
circumstantial evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn
from proven facts are within the province of the trier of fact."
Fleming v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 349, 353, 412 S.E.2d 180,
183 (1991). 	"Intent may be shown by a person's conduct and by
his statements." 	Long v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 194, 198, 379
S.E.2d 473, 476 (1989). 	Considered in its particular context,
the anonymous note was placed in a regularly emptied suggestion
box in a nursing home occupied by elderly patients. 	The staff at
the nursing home contacted the police and initiated an
investigation to uncover the anonymous bomber as soon as the note
was found and read. 	The investigation was ongoing. 	During the
investigation, the nursing home's corporate headquarters faxed a
document written in the same handwriting as the prospective
bomber, also unsigned, threatening bodily harm to Julia and Pam.
Under appellant's theory, a written threat that is mailed or

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delivered indirectly by a third party can never be a threat under
Code § 18.2-83. 	Such a result would be absurd and would be
contrary to the legislature's intent and language. 	The statute
requires that a threat be made and communicated. 	Appellant made
the threat when she wrote the note and placed it in the
suggestion box. 	The threat was communicated when the note was
taken out of the box and read. 	Thus, the crime was not completed
until May 8, 1993.
The contents of the note, read in conjunction with the
additional anonymous note sent to corporate headquarters,
confutes appellant's argument that there was insufficient
evidence of an actual intent to bomb the nursing home. 	There was
no evidence that the threat was withdrawn or recanted, that the
suggestion box was broken into in an attempt to retrieve the
note, or that the writer no longer harbored sufficient ill will
to bomb the nursing home. 	On the contrary, appellant's actions
evinced a continuing threat to damage the nursing home.
Appellant also argues that the threat was not credible
because (1) no one would have written the suggestion about the
change machine, which led to her apprehension, if she still
intended to bomb the nursing home, and (2) the threat was based
on an absurd condition precedent. 	As to the suggestion for the
change machine, Parrish testified that appellant told him that
her mother was not aware of the threatening note. 	Because she
was unaware that her daughter had written the earlier note,

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appellant's mother had no qualms about implicating her daughter
in an attempt to gain the reward.
Because the appellant threatened to bomb the nursing home,
with Julia present, only if the administrator refused to do it,
appellant alleges that the threat was absurd and "nonsensical."
Appellant suggests that her threat was akin to "idle talk or
jesting." 	There was no evidence that the note was written in
jest or as a joke.
Because it is absurd and incredible to believe that the
administration would bomb its own building, the fact finder could
as easily find appellant's threat even more serious and imminent.
The natural syllogism flowing from appellant's argument is that
if the appellant did not bomb the nursing home, it would not get
done.
The Commonwealth's evidence was competent, was not
inherently incredible, and was sufficient to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that appellant had the requisite intent to
damage the nursing home and that she violated Code § 18.2-83.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the defendant's
conviction.
Affirmed.