COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judge Annunziata and 

 Senior Judge Hodges 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

TAMEKIA ANDERSON 

v. Record No. 1923-94-2 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

 JUDGE WILLIAM H. HODGES 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA AUGUST 1, 1995 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF GOOCHLAND COUNTY 

James M. Lumpkin, Judge Designate 

 John M. Williamson for appellant. 

 Monica S. McElyea, Assistant Attorney General 

(James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

 The appellant, Tamekia Anderson, was convicted in a bench 

trial of threatening to bomb a nursing home in violation of Code 

§ 18.2-83. On appeal, she contends that (1) because the note 

placed in the suggestion box remained in the box until someone 

retrieved it at a future time, she neither communicated the 

threat or possessed a present intention to injure anyone, and (2) 

the threat was not credible and was conditional. We disagree and 

affirm. 

 "On appeal, we review the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable 

inferences fairly deducible therefrom." Martin v. Commonwealth, 

4 Va. App. 438, 443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). Catherine Renee 

Zahn is the office manager at the Meadows Nursing Home. She 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010, this opinion is not designated 

for publication. 
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testified that she collects all communications placed in the 

nursing home's suggestion box on the eighth day of every month. 

On May 8, 1993, Zahn found an anonymous note in the suggestion 

box with the following message: 

 TO: The Administrator 

 I have a suggestion! Blow this hellhole up & 

make sure Julia is in here when the place 

blows. If you don't do it -- I will. So 

watch out and tell Julia her days are 

numbered. 

 The director of nursing was Julia McNeese. Zahn indicated 

that "an investigation [was conducted] trying to find out who 

originally had written that note." Handwriting samples from 

personnel files were studied without success. Pamela Dozier, the 

executive director of the nursing home, testified that, in late 

June of 1993, she received a facsimile from the nursing home's 

corporate headquarters of an employee questionnaire that had been 

sent to the corporate office. The unsigned questionnaire 

contained threats to "cause serious bodily harm" to "Pam and 

Julia" and was written in the same handwriting as the original 

note. 

 Chief Investigator Parrish conducted an investigation to 

find the person who wrote the note. On August 10, 1993, 

officials at the nursing home contacted Parrish and informed him 

that they had received a note in the suggestion box suggesting 

that a change machine be installed in the employee's lounge. 

This note was unsigned and written in the same handwriting as the 

May 8 note. By offering a reward to the person who suggested the 
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change machine, officials discovered that appellant wrote both 

notes for her mother, who was an employee at the nursing home. 

Parrish confronted appellant, and she admitted writing the notes. 

 Code § 18.2-83 provides, in pertinent part: 

 Any person who (a) makes and communicates to 

another by any means any threat to bomb, 

burn, destroy or in any manner damage any 

place of assembly, building or other 

structure . . . shall be guilty of a Class 1 

misdemeanor. 

 "A threat, in the criminal context, is recognized to be a 

communication avowing an intent to injure another's person or 

property. The communication, taken in its particular context, 

must reasonably cause the receiver to believe that the speaker 

will act according to his expression of intent." Perkins v. 

Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 7, 16, 402 S.E.2d 229, 234 (1991). A 

threat "'is defined as an avowed present determination or intent 

to injure presently or in the future.'" Parnell v. Commonwealth, 

15 Va. App. 342, 423 S.E.2d 834 (1992). 

 Appellant asserts that because the note may have been placed 

in the suggestion box at some point after it was last emptied on 

April 8, 1993, and remained there for up to thirty days before 

the box was emptied on May 8, 1993, the note failed to possess 

the immediacy required to fit within the definition of a threat. 

 Specifically, appellant contends that the indictment charged 
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that she threatened to bomb the nursing home on May 8, 1993, but, 

because the note was written up to thirty days before that date, 

there was insufficient evidence that she still intended to bomb 

the nursing home on May 8. Appellant argues that "there is 

simply no way of telling what the Appellant's intentions, 

feelings, or emotions were on May 8, 1993." She also contends 

that because the nursing home was not bombed before she was 

discovered as the anonymous writer and apprehended, she no longer 

intended to carry out the bombing. 

 "Intent may, and most often must, be proven by 

circumstantial evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn 

from proven facts are within the province of the trier of fact." 

Fleming v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 349, 353, 412 S.E.2d 180, 

183 (1991). "Intent may be shown by a person's conduct and by 

his statements." Long v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 194, 198, 379 

S.E.2d 473, 476 (1989). Considered in its particular context, 

the anonymous note was placed in a regularly emptied suggestion 

box in a nursing home occupied by elderly patients. The staff at 

the nursing home contacted the police and initiated an 

investigation to uncover the anonymous bomber as soon as the note 

was found and read. The investigation was ongoing. During the 

investigation, the nursing home's corporate headquarters faxed a 

document written in the same handwriting as the prospective 

bomber, also unsigned, threatening bodily harm to Julia and Pam. 

 Under appellant's theory, a written threat that is mailed or 
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delivered indirectly by a third party can never be a threat under 

Code § 18.2-83. Such a result would be absurd and would be 

contrary to the legislature's intent and language. The statute 

requires that a threat be made and communicated. Appellant made 

the threat when she wrote the note and placed it in the 

suggestion box. The threat was communicated when the note was 

taken out of the box and read. Thus, the crime was not completed 

until May 8, 1993. 

 The contents of the note, read in conjunction with the 

additional anonymous note sent to corporate headquarters, 

confutes appellant's argument that there was insufficient 

evidence of an actual intent to bomb the nursing home. There was 

no evidence that the threat was withdrawn or recanted, that the 

suggestion box was broken into in an attempt to retrieve the 

note, or that the writer no longer harbored sufficient ill will 

to bomb the nursing home. On the contrary, appellant's actions 

evinced a continuing threat to damage the nursing home. 

 Appellant also argues that the threat was not credible 

because (1) no one would have written the suggestion about the 

change machine, which led to her apprehension, if she still 

intended to bomb the nursing home, and (2) the threat was based 

on an absurd condition precedent. As to the suggestion for the 

change machine, Parrish testified that appellant told him that 

her mother was not aware of the threatening note. Because she 

was unaware that her daughter had written the earlier note, 
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appellant's mother had no qualms about implicating her daughter 

in an attempt to gain the reward. 

 Because the appellant threatened to bomb the nursing home, 

with Julia present, only if the administrator refused to do it, 

appellant alleges that the threat was absurd and "nonsensical." 

 Appellant suggests that her threat was akin to "idle talk or 

jesting." There was no evidence that the note was written in 

jest or as a joke. 

 Because it is absurd and incredible to believe that the 

administration would bomb its own building, the fact finder could 

as easily find appellant's threat even more serious and imminent. 

 The natural syllogism flowing from appellant's argument is that 

if the appellant did not bomb the nursing home, it would not get 

done. 

 The Commonwealth's evidence was competent, was not 

inherently incredible, and was sufficient to prove beyond a 

reasonable doubt that appellant had the requisite intent to 

damage the nursing home and that she violated Code § 18.2-83. 

 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the defendant's 

conviction. 

 Affirmed.