Girls charged over sickening cake
Georgia teens due in court after classmates fall ill
 | |
|  VIDEO |
 Two middle school girls are charged with poisoning cake.
|
HEALTH LIBRARY |  |  |
|
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Two suburban Atlanta schoolgirls accused of using a poisoned cake to sicken more than a dozen classmates are scheduled to appear before a juvenile court judge on assault charges Friday.
Twelve students suffered from abdominal pain, nausea and diarrhea, and three others have reported similar symptoms, police said. Investigators suspect the cake contained bleach and glue, among other substances, but Cobb County Police spokesman Cpl. Dana Pierce said the remnants of the dish have not yet been tested.
"We're looking for a lab, a private or government lab, to test that for us," Pierce said.
The girls, both 13, were being held in the Cobb County juvenile detention center in Marietta on Thursday. Each faces 12 counts of aggravated assault with intent to commit murder, police said.
One of the girls has been charged with an additional count of making terrorist threats after reportedly telling her classmates the cake they were eating contained bleach. But the girl's father -- an occasional freelance writer for CNN -- said his daughter denies putting bleach in the cake, though she admits to mixing in glue.
The father called the incident "a bad prank."
"It wasn't anybody trying to kill anybody," he said, adding that his daughter suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.
The girls can't be tried on assault charges as adults. But Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head said he needs to verify the contents of the cake before deciding whether other charges might be warranted.
"It could be that it stays serious, or it could be that the analysis of the cake says that there was nothing in there that was that harmful," he said. "In that case, we'll look at what the appropriate charges should be."
Authorities could not say when test results would be available.
Eric Philips contributed to this report.
