A Girl Reported A Fake Bomb Threat At University So She Could Avoid Graduation

American Danielle Shea, 22, had dropped out of school but didn't want her mum – who'd been bankrolling her – to find out…

DanielleShea

by Sophie Wilkinson |
Published on

For some people, finals are the big stress of their university life. With just a few weeks to cram in all your learning, hand in piles of coursework and then find the time to arrange a really good send-off after three or four years of being a student, there's a lot to get on with. However, for one girl in Connecticut, she was most worried about graduation. So worried, in fact, she called in a bomb threat to get the whole thing called off.

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Danielle Shea, 22, is in court after calling police alleging there was a bomb at the Quinnipiac University ceremony. There's never going to be a sensible reason for why she did it, but her logic certainly is interesting. Danielle had dropped out of university, so she wasn't actually going to graduate. However, her mother, who had been giving her thousands of dollars, thinking that it was going towards Danielle's tuition, had no idea her daughter was no longer taking classes.

'She was living off-campus. Her mother thought she was going to school,' said Hamden police captain Ronald Smith. So, obviously, expecting to proudly beam at Danielle as she accepted that fabled scroll, her mum had driven over 100 miles from Quincy, Massachusetts to see her daughter graduate.

Danielle had managed to procure a mortarboard and gown so she looked the part for the graduation, but the gig was up when her mother was denied access to a viewing platform because Danielle was not on the list of graduates. Instead of pulling a 'don't you know who I am?' routine because it was likely that that wouldn't work, Danielle went for the other drastic, ridiculous option that wouldn't work and stepped away to call in a bomb threat to the university.

Graduation was delayed by an hour as the threat was investigated and then moved to an athletics compound, where Danielle was arrested. The police had worked out it was her by tracking her mobile phone.

She was arraigned at Meriden Superior Court and charged with first degree threatening and falsely reporting an incident. Her bail is set at $10,000 (£6,000).

Something tells us her mum isn't going to foot that bill. Stay in school, kids.

Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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