A judge on Thursday threw out a hoax-bomb charge brought against a Richmond woman whose novelty alarm clock set off a panic after it was discovered in her car at the Short Pump Whole Foods parking lot in May.
Matthew Nelson, sitting as a substitute judge in Henrico County General District Court, dismissed the case against Daphne Daedre Page, 52, finding there wasn't probable cause to certify the case to a grand jury.
Page had been charged with placing a hoax explosive device in order to intentionally cause others to believe it was a bomb.
But the case may not be over. David Stock, an assistant commonwealth's attorney for Henrico, said prosecutors will seek to have a grand jury directly indict Page on the same charge next month.
Henrico police said they were called to Whole Foods about 5 p.m. May 19 after the device was spotted in the vehicle. Police said the fake bomb — which investigators said had brown tubes resembling dynamite, wiring and a "countdown timer" — was sitting in plain sight atop a motor oil box that was resting on the folded-down back seat of Page's red Mercedes station wagon. The vehicle was parked near the entrance to the store.
Henrico police said the device at first glance appeared to be a bomb.
A robot was used to remove it from the vehicle.
Officer Shaun Campbell, a Henrico Police Department bomb technician, said during Thursday's hearing that the device had two wires leading to one of its brown tubes. Campbell said that upon closer inspection, the device appeared to be an alarm clock. The device was pulled out of an evidence envelope and placed before the judge during the court hearing.
Stock said the device didn't appear to have been haphazardly tossed in among items in the back of the vehicle. Instead, it seemed to have been deliberately placed in plain view on the folded-down back seat, the prosecutor said. It was sitting in the vehicle on a Friday at a busy time for the grocery store, Stock said.
"You've got a device that's propped up in there with nothing surrounding it," Stock said.
Jed Patterson, Page's attorney, said no bomb threat was called in and no note was left making any threat. Patterson said that although his client had the device, there's no evidence that she intended to fool anyone into thinking it was real. Officers located Page as she walked back to her vehicle about 20 minutes after they responded.
The judge told prosecutors he hadn't been presented with evidence proving Page was the one who placed the device in the vehicle. Merely owning the vehicle and walking back to it wasn't enough to show she placed it in there, the judge ruled.
Page gave multiple interviews from jail saying she didn't mean for the clock to cause a stir. Page said she bought it for $1 at a yard sale on Mother's Day and then left it in her car. Page, who spent a weekend in jail before being released on bond, has said she bought it as a gift for her daughter.
After the hearing, Page said she noticed something was amiss when she saw her vehicle cordoned off by police tape as she was taking groceries to the vehicle. Page said she spoke to some officers about the commotion.
“I say, ‘Is it OK for me to go to my car?' and they said, 'Oh, is that your car?'" Page said, adding that police "pointed at me, and they rushed, and I was terrified. I didn’t know what was going on.”
Page reiterated after the hearing that she didn't mean for the device to cause such controversy.
"I didn’t intend for other people to see it," Page said. "It did not occur to me that anybody would see this thing.”
Page said the back seat was folded down because she's often traveling and moving items such as luggage and furniture. The motor oil box, she said, is basically the only container she has in the vehicle to hold items.
Page also said she wants to find work as a substitute teacher and is concerned the incident will put off would-be employers. She hopes the charge is expunged from her record.
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