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Mom Admits Giving Rifle To Teen Who Plotted Attack

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The Associated Press

Published: September 24, 2008

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - A woman admitted she helped her troubled, bullied 14-year-old son build a weapons cache by buying a rifle and gunpowder, but investigators still don't know whether she was aware her son was planning a deadly school attack.

Michele Cossey, 46, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Montgomery County Court to one count of child endangerment. She admitted that she gave her son access to a rifle with a laser scope and gunpowder, which investigators said he was using to build grenades.

Prosecutors said her son, Dillon, came to idolize the Columbine High School shooters and was planning an attack last year on Plymouth Whitemarsh High School.

Dillon Cossey, bullied over his weight, left public school in seventh grade and was being home-schooled. Violent Internet sites fueled his revenge fantasies, his attorney said.

Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Parisi said he thought purchasing the weapons was "an attempt to boost his self-esteem, and in some way help the child, as misplaced as those thoughts may have been."

Michelle Cossey's sentencing will not occur for at least three months until a psychiatric evaluation is completed. The maximum possible prison term is 3 1/2 to 7 years.
Parisi said he doesn't know whether Cossey knew about her son's attack plans, but that he hopes to learn that before sentencing.

"If it were to come out that she knew he was planning an attack ... that would certainly increase the severity of the crime," he said.

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