FBI offers reward in bomb threats at schools

Marist High School cancelled classes again Thursday after receiving multiple threats. The school cancelled classes on Tuesday after a threatening note found at O'Hara Catholic School mentioned Marist. A threat was later found on the grounds at Marist, too.

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Story Published: Jan 8, 2009 at 4:57 PM PST

By Molly Blancett KVAL News and KVAL Web Staff

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EUGENE, Ore. -- The FBI announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of the person or people behind bomb threats that forced three private schools to cancel classes today.

O'Hara Catholic School, Marist High School and Grace Lutheran Church -- which has a K-8 school on the property -- all closed today.

This was the second time this week classes were cancelled at O'Hara and Marist. The two private Catholic schools cancelled classes Tuesday after receiving bomb threats.

Police think those threats and Thursday's threats are related, even though the threats were delivered in different ways.

Classes at Marist were delayed two hours Thursday morning after a man left a message on the school's voice mail sometime Wednesday night.

At 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning, the school received another threatening call, prompting Marist principal Jay Conroy to cancel classes.

The principal said the school hasn't had a threat in 20 years.

"They are clearly disrupting our school," Conroy said. "It's not at typical behavior, so for us to try to gain any perfect insight or give an accurate picture of who is doing this is, we don't know."

Police were called to O'Hara -- a pre-kindergarten through 8th grade school -- around 7 a.m. to investigate a separate threat.

And Grace Lutheran Church school principal Chris Curry said someone posted a threatening message on the church's door sometime overnight.

Classes at all three schools are scheduled to resume on Friday.

Eugene policed called in the FBI to look into the civil rights aspects of the threats. All three schools are private religious schools.

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