One Teacher Sabotages Another
(Forensic Files, “Sealed with a Kiss”)
Note: Updated with information from fall 2024
The “Sealed with a Kiss” story differs from most other Forensic Files episodes in that it involves no violence.
If fact, no one touched anyone or stole anything during the extended course of the criminal activity.
Bad Barbie. But it’s a sordid case just the same, and the episode features on-camera interviews with both the accused and the victim, who ultimately trade places.
The drama kicked off when someone began menacing Joanne Chambers — a teacher admired for her warm, unconventional approach to her job — with threatening letters, offensive photos and, yes, a voodoo Barbie doll.
The episode was produced back in 1997, when Forensic Files still went by the name Medical Detectives, so for this week, I looked around to find out what happened to Joanne Chambers and whether she’s retained any of the respect she earned as a teacher before things got weird.
So, let’s get going on the recap of “Sealed with a Kiss” along with extra information from internet research.
Positive reinforcement. In 1993, Joanne Chambers and Paula Nawrocki both taught first grade at the Coolbaugh Learning Center, which sounds like a for-profit tutoring business, but was actually a public school in Pennsylvania’s Poconos region.
Joanne, 41, lived in Carbondale with her husband, who owned a painting business, and her 10-year-old son.
She taught first-grade reading and liked to make school fun and nurturing. Joanne did entertaining things like dressing up pillars to look like palm trees. She ended each class with the words, “You are wonderful and beautiful. You make my heart happy,” according to Redbook magazine.
Students and parents loved her.
Poison pen. Paula Nawrocki, who had started working for the district in 1975, was stricter and more formal in her teaching but was well-respected, too. The Allentown Morning Call would later write that Paula “had a record as clean as a new chalkboard.”
That seemed to change when the principal of the school where both women worked started receiving anonymous letters trashing Joanne. Pretty soon, Joanne herself began getting the disturbing missives and other teachers did, too.
So started a strange and upsetting period lasting 18 months.
Tawdry collages. All the letters disparaged Joanne. At first, they simply mocked her, criticizing her for wearing jeans at school and organizing a faculty water fight.
They progressed to calling the soft-spoken Joanne a bitch and claiming she smoked marijuana.
Other letters accused Joanne of child molestation and threatened to drag her into the woods and torture her to death. The tormenter pasted Joanne’s face on nude pictures in sex scenes, then sent them to parents and posted them out in the open.
Someone planted a whiskey bottle in her desk drawer.
J’accuse. Joanne told police that she cut her hand after the anonymous evildoer placed a razor blade under her car door handle — and later sent her a typed note saying, “You’re sliced.” She needed eight stitches to close the wound on her right middle finger.
As the campaign of terror waged on, Joanne received sympathy and concern from her colleagues.
Perhaps a bit overzealous in their efforts to find the culprit, officials called a faculty meeting in March 1994 and told teachers that the menacer “is someone sitting in this room.”
Secret audio. Soon, a solid clue came to light when video footage caught Paula Nawrocki entering Joanne’s classroom and removing Joanne’s mug, which immediately made her a suspect because the anonymous letter-writer had threatened to poison Joanne’s coffee.
When questioned, Paula explained that Joanne had asked her to retrieve the mug. She also allegedly said something to the effect of “You’ll never prove it’s me.” That sounded fishy to Coolbaugh Township Police Chief Anthony Fluegel.
The police wired up Joanne and had her talk to Paula about the terror campaign in hopes that something incriminating would slip out.
Lie detector. But it didn’t work. Paula said nothing incriminating on the tape, and in fact expressed sympathy: “Joanne, I can’t, I can’t imagine how this person can do what they’re doing,” Nawrocki said on the recording. “We are all amazed, Joanne, that you can be surviving through the whole thing.”
But when both women took polygraph tests, Paula failed. Joanne passed.
Next up, Paula consented to having her house searched. That helped her a little. Examination proved that her typewriter wasn’t the one used to send the frightening letters.
Domestic melodrama. Meanwhile, the school had received the aforementioned Barbie, which someone had dressed and coiffed to look like Joanne, then stuck a razor blade in the neck and drizzled with red paint.
“I said good-bye to my husband like I wanted him to remember me saying good-bye,” Joanne told Forensic Files. “I lived every day thinking that it was truly possible that it could be my last.”
Next up, Joanne told police that Paula Nawrocki had tailgated her and tried to run her off the road on I-380.
Press picks it up. That alleged offense was enough for authorities to arrest Paula for the entire horror campaign — 100 counts, including making terroristic threats, stalking, and recklessly endangering life.
Paula’s husband, Leonard Nawrocki, who worked as an inspector for the Department of Environmental Protection, would years later tell the Morning Call of his shock at seeing news of the arrest in the paper just one day later. According to the Morning Call, the Nawrockis suddenly felt like the subjects of a witch hunt fueled by overeager investigators and journalists:
“When a reporter seeking a comment phoned their home in Moscow, Lackawanna County, [Leonard] told him, ‘She’s not talking to anybody.’ He said the reporter noted in his story, ‘A man answered the phone at the Nawrocki residence and said, ‘She’s not talking to anybody.”‘
Suddenly pariahs. “Basically we were isolated people,” Leonard Nawrocki, father of the couple’s son, Kevin, told Morning Call reporter Mike Frassinelli. “We felt like there wasn’t a friend in the world.”
Leonard also said that other teachers ignored Paula at lunch and administrators snubbed her at a basketball game.
The parents of one student asked the school to remove him from Paula’s class. She was suspended with pay shortly afterward.
Harassment stops. Fluegel later told Dateline NBC that at least 10 teachers he spoke to said they suspected Paula Nawrocki as the party behind the terror campaign against Joanne.
After Paula’s arrest, the menacing behavior toward Joanne stopped.
But the FBI couldn’t find forensic evidence to help build a case against Paula.
Past comes to light. The private investigator and lawyer who Paula Nawrocki hired had better luck. She paid $7,000 to have some of the threatening letters tested for her DNA. The lab found a small number of epithelial cells under one set of stamps and an envelope flap.
None of them matched the DNA from Paula or Leonard. But those forensics weren’t enough to clear Paula.
Fortunately, some circumstantial evidence materialized. Police from Carbondale, Pennsylvania, told Paula’s defense team that, going back years, Joanne had a history of reporting suspicious incidents such as fires and burglaries. Colleagues from Joanne’s prior employer, the Lackawanna Trail School District, near Scranton, testified that Joanne had said that other teachers had threatened to torch her house.
Compulsive complainer. Some of her ex-coworkers from the previous school said that Joanne liked to cause trouble for other teachers and that her arrival made waves in what had been a harmonious workplace.
In a precursor to what happened at Joanne’s Coolbaugh job, at the Lackawanna school, a superintendent had called a meeting of teachers to disclose the alleged threats made against Joanne — and announced that the guilty party “is someone sitting in this room.”
“Every crime she said she was a victim of had some weirdness attached to it,” Paula’s private investigator, Jim Anderson, said in one of my favorite Forensic Files quotes.
Garbage comes in handy. And like most compulsive liars, Joanne didn’t keep her stories straight. She told one teacher that she broke her leg jumping from a burning building at Marywood College and another that it happened when she jumped to escape evil nuns trying to keep her in a convent against her will, according to a Morning Call story from Jan. 21, 1996. (A couple of newspaper articles referred to Joanne as a former nun or student nun, but it’s not clear whether or not that was one of her tall tales.)
Anderson retrieved some items from Joanne’s trash with DNA. One the samples matched DNA from the stamps and the envelope flap.
Joanne’s explanation was that the stamps from the threatening letter came off — she was alone with them in some type of evidence room, she said — and she licked them to reattach them.
Prolonged trauma. At the trial in 1996, which Dateline NBC covered, Coolbaugh’s principal and some of its teachers testified that they suspected Paula Nawrocki of creating the terror campaign against Joanne Chambers. Paula had started acting jumpy and nervous around the time the incidents began.
The courtroom presentation of the hate letters and threats initially put the jurors in Joanne’s corner.
“I felt so bad for this woman, this poor thing, to have had to go through all these terrible things,” one juror later told Dateline NBC, which broadcast a segment about the case on Aug. 25, 1997.
But Paula’s lawyer Phil Lauer managed to turn the tables.
Revelations from the past. Some former colleagues of Joanne Chambers from a different school testified that Joanne had a history of complaining about anonymous threats.
Jim Anderson discovered that Joanne had reported about a dozen fires and burglaries on her property — more proof, the defense contended, that she liked playing the role of victim.
After five days of testimony and two hours of deliberation, the jury reached a not guilty verdict. Paula cried with relief, and some of the jurors hugged her outside the courtroom. One said, “Our hearts are with you.”
Reinstated at last. Paula commented that Joanne “needs help.” (Before the trial, Fluegel had said Paula needed help.)
In 1997, Paula faced another hearing of sorts when the Pocono Mountain School Board investigated her for “immorality” based on other aspects of Joanne Chambers’ accusations.
Nawrocki was cleared again and allowed to resume her $55,000-a-year job “after months of school board hearings that were peppered with audience cheers for Nawrocki and jeers for Chambers,” the Morning Call reported.
Six-figure compensation. Joanne lamented that the polygraph evidence couldn’t be used in court but ultimately said she just wanted to get on with her life.
Paula agreed to appear on the Dateline segment about the case but later said she found it tedious. She also gave an interview to Redbook magazine but soon regretted it, feeling the resulting article cast some doubt on her innocence.
She filed a $9 million lawsuit against the school, Joanne Chambers, and the police. In 2000, she received a $600,000 settlement from the school plus $25,000 from Chambers. (Joanne’s lawyer, John E. Freund III, said that she settled only because she wanted to avoid the cost of defense.)
No payday from us. Paula sued Police Chief Anthony Fluegel as well, but Fluegel went to trial instead of settling and won the case. Court papers from 2002 noted, in Fluegel’s defense, that other teachers passed lie detector tests. Only Nawrocki failed, so Fluegel had reason to make her the prime suspect.
“I thought from the beginning I was just doing my job,” Fluegel later said, calling the Nawrockis’ allegations against him baseless.
None of the authorities who Nawrocki accused of malicious prosecution ended up paying any damages to her — and rightly so, considering that they had evidence against Nawrocki that seemed credible. The fault lay with Joanne Chambers for lying, not those who had every reason to believe her.
Under the radar. A note from the producers at the end of the episode said that Paula spent $100,000 in her defense, and mentioned that both women still taught in the Pocono Mountain School District but at different schools.
But that was back in 1997. What’s happened since then?
Well, Paula Nawrocki has kept a low profile since 2002, after she lost her suit against the police. She has no presence on social media and no longer speaks to journalists.
Her husband, Leonard Nawrocki, gave an interview to the Times-Tribune in July 4, 2012 — but the article was about a rally featuring then-Vice President Joe Biden that Leonard attended.
On Oct. 19, 2015, a Morning Call obituary for a local woman who died at age 96 mentioned that Paula Nawrocki was “like a daughter” to her. So, it sounds as though Paula stayed in the area.
Back on the job market. As for Joanne Chambers, she retired in June 2015 after having received the prestigious National Board Certified status.
But just three months later, on Sept. 25,2015, an article titled “Scandalous past gives school board pause” appeared in the Hazleton Standard-Speaker.
The story noted that the Hazleton Area School Board was ready to hire Joanne Chambers as a Wilson reading specialist — that is, an educator who teaches dyslexic kids.
The Pennsylvania Wilson program officials highly recommended Joanne.
Supporter speaks out. But just in time to spoil the party, the Barbie doll reared its ugly head. Some parents put her name in Google and reported the resulting intelligence about the terror complaints, decoupage porn, etc., to the school board, which tabled the decision to hire her.
Still, Joanne has at least one fan of her professional accomplishments.
A former colleague named Jamie Schweppenheiser from the Pocono Mountain School District wrote a letter to the editor praising Chambers as a professional who “helped countless children and young adults learn how to read” and saying “what a shame for the teachers and students of the Hazleton Area School District to miss out on the opportunity to be mentored by Joanne Chambers.”
In other words, Joanne Chambers remains a divisive and contradictory figure, someone who allegedly created an absolute nightmare for one woman but also gave many children the gift of better reading skills, higher self-esteem, and a sense of accomplishment that will make them happier, more productive adults.
Update: Joanne Chambers died at the age of 76 on November 1, 2024. Her obituary mentions that her husband predeceased her and that a son survives. Thanks to reader Laur C. for writing in with the news.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. – RR
Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube
Thanks, Rebecca – one I recall.
‘“I said good-bye to my husband like I wanted him to remember me saying good-bye,” Joanne told Forensic Files.’ If she *really* thought that, I don’t think a sane person would go to work – thinking the job’s not worth it. Moreover, I don’t think her husband would let her.
“The fault lay with Joanne Chambers for lying, not those who had every reason to believe her.” Did they have every reason? They had *some* reason, but I suggest that had school managers bothered to enquire about Chambers’ background they’d have formed reason to be skeptical about her claims. Instead, events were adjudged at face value; and I think it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that investigation and procedure was – at least initially – incompetent. That includes leaving evidence potentially against Chambers with her alone (when she alleges re-attaching the stamp – and who’d bother doing that and also knowing it’s evidence?)
“Joanne Chambers remains a divisive and contradictory figure, someone who created an absolute nightmare for one woman…”: I think you mean that she accused Nawrocki, not that she set her up (because we don’t know for sure…) – but maybe you *do* mean that she can reasonably be taken to be guilty of framing? If guilty, it makes her a ‘fruit loop,’ albeit one who can also function normally and successfully relate to others. I’d be interested to know whether a psychiatric condition could apply to her pathology (if guilty) – a kind of Munchausen’s, wherein victimhood is feigned instead of illness, with ‘symptoms’ created to make it plausible, but for the same reason as said condition: attention. What would her husband say, I wonder?
We seemed to be invited to draw the conclusion at the end of the ep that Chambers was ‘guilty’, not Nawrocki, and I go along with that. N would have to’ve been suicidally stupid to’ve authored this hate campaign, having a great deal to lose – as she nearly did – and nothing to gain other than satisfaction at another’s suffering, presumably for nothing more than professional jealousy. On the other hand, Chambers’ very weird history and the stamp episode justify suspicion of C. What a nasty cow if she did! Schweppenheiser evidently doesn’t think so – and he also appears not to think that others don’t – which makes him naive, stupid, or both… Reasonable people couldn’t regard Chambers as a desirable employee, despite her strictly professional competence, because the toxic stain on her is just too deep…
I wonder if her history of paranoiac claims ceased at this episode (because she knew her credibility was shot and they’d be further evidence of a set-up)?
But who would suspect the victim would send all those threatening, debasing letters to herself? This was back in 1993 before Munchausen syndrome was known by all.
What it seems should’ve sparked suspicion of Chambers was when it was discovered there was a history of ‘victimisation’ – at a previous school, before, presumably, she’d met Nawrocki. That should’ve prompted the question (i) is she lying about personal attacks, and if there’s evidence of those attacks (ii) is she planting it? This should immediately have taken the heat off N…
It could, of course, have been that the putative perp at her former school – not N – was attacking at her current school – but the obvious problem with that is that some of the ‘attacks’ required physical presence, such as the faeces- and booze-planting, entailing access by X, who was never seen and likely wouldn’t have easy access to a secure junior school.
I don’t know at what stage the evidence of this ‘history of attack’ became known – but as soon as it did the already extremely weak case against N should’ve ensured it rendered the case laughably weak and dropped. As if that’s not enough, even the stamp’s likely indicating self-authorship wasn’t! I can only think that the fools who brought and proceeded with the case became so embarrassed by its poverty – in too deep – they proceeded ’til the bitter end.
When N was exonerated what SHOULD’ve happened is that C was investigated for (i) wasting police time and (ii) for potential dismissal by her employer. Both law and employer were incompetent.
It’s just possible they thought they had a fruit loop and therefore it was in no-one’s interest to pursue (N would disagree, as might her colleagues!) But I’d disagree: it would make C a high-risk colleague, and who would want such working with children (no history of violence, of course, but who knows how her ‘illness’ could progress)?
Just because it wasn’t known doesn’t mean people didn’t have it.
Of course you‘re right with the Munchhausen, but even at this time it was well-known, that people do make up false allegations. Just think about how many women have been burned as “witches.” It literally was nothing else in former times to accuse a woman of “killing two of my horses by passing by and making a cow of mine give only sour milk anymore.”
That’s why I too think, that “the fault lay with Joanne Chambers for lying, not those who had every reason to believe her” is wrong — at least somehow.
By now we of course know that a polygraph is by a good chance not a lie detector but a lying detector. Back in 1993 it most probably was different, but why did the lawyer have to find out about Joanne’s past? This should have been the work of the police officers. And the cup Paula took? She gave a very plausible explanation -– at the latest then they should have questioned Joanne.
In addition: With all their work, they could not find one single evidence that REALLY points to Paula. Quoting a line of her which the officer maybe didn’t even understand correctly definitely is nothing even worth mentioning as it also is taken out of context. So with absolutely no evidence, and as DNA tests were available back then, the officers at the very least should have simply checked this.
Well after showing it again, you can be assured that she is done. Public opinion alone from watching the show will see to that.
A lousy 25k from Chambers, what a joke. I would’ve sued her for everything she had, she deserves to lose absolutely everything. Evil or crazy or both. Any good she has done is completely nullified by the viciousness of what she did to Nawrocki.
I agree. I seriously think Chambers should have done jail time for falsely accusing Nawrocki of attempting to run her off the road, as well as for accusing her of all the threats. She doesn’t belong to be teaching school in any event. She is psychologically disturbed.
I agree. If our prisons were not so full of murderers she really needed to serve some time. And hopefully she will never be allowed to teach again and she lost her teaching license.
You’re absolutely correct if it was just hearsay that’s one thing but she had police reports made to that effect so those are full documents that’s a crime. Think of all the hours that law enforcement spent on this. She should have been ordered to compensate for that.
Assuming she was the perp she got off lightly – but the problem isn’t just her: the school board and even police were incompetent – both effectively used as pawns or tools by C, making it much worse for N, so they’re as answerable as she is.
I one hundred percent agree. The investigation at the very least was a three-ring circus. Chambers relished in being ringmaster with the school and police following suit.
Let’s not forget Nawrocki was arrested for trying to run allegedly Chambers off the road. She not only tried to ruin her professionally but criminally too. Chambers had an excuse for the DNA on the stamp but not on the envelope. Why she wasn’t prosecuted for what she put everyone through is baffling? She should have been financially charged for the whole investigation, court hearings and everything related. You have to wonder what would possess another human being to do all she did? The only answer is she’s mentally ill. Her teaching credentials should have been revoked. Just goes to show you how unreliable lie detector tests are. What an incredible story!
One case that truly sticks with you. Nawrocki is a true survivor in her own right. This a classic case of rumors/hysteria shouldn’t outshine real sustainable evidence. Chambers was lucky, compared to what was ultimately deserved, basically got off scot-free. I wonder if she might have benefited from a harder sentence or mandated therapy after the first indiscretion.
The people in charge of the school should have lost their jobs, JC should have lost her job, lost her teacher’s pension, served prison (not jail) time, paid PN’s legal fees, plus pay more than $25,000.
Everyone involved with the investigation and trial against PN should have lost their jobs because they clearly don’t know what they are doing. How do you not find the past history of JC? How do you not test the stamp or envelope for DNA? This is after they had determined that PN did not have the typewriter that made the letters. AND, the FBI assisted in the investigation, finding NOTHING!!! Still, PN was charged with 100 counts of baseless charges for no reason other than “appearing to look guilty”. 100 counts!! They forced her to spend $100,000 to prove her innocence!
I watched this episode the first time it aired on television, and my blood boils every time it re-airs.
Lie detectors are useless at actually detecting lies. Their only utility is to put pressure on someone who doesn’t know how useless they are! So the fact that Nawrocki “failed” is meaningless. Chambers got off lightly. She should never have been allowed anywhere near another child or working environment in her life.
She is a poisonous individual with serious mental problems.
Someone else mentioned Munchausen syndrome and to me, Chambers is an obvious candidate.
Perhaps she has multiple personalities, and one of them did the harrassing. It’s a plot on tv, so it has to be possible, right? 😉
If you mean she’s a (dangerous) psychobitch – hell, yeah!
Yes just because you “outlined” something for us doesn’t make it automatically correct.
We are dealing with a very strange situation. There is a lot of things that suggest that the two of them could have been working together. The motivation of financial gain for both parties is actually the only rational explanation for their course of actions. To believe that Joanne did all this purely to be seen as a victim relies on us assuming she acted very irrationally indeed. Why dismiss a rational motive for an irrational one?
Paula failing the lie detector test is something which could easily have been practiced, just as Joanne passing it could have been trained for.
Paula’s own words to the police when she said “you’ll never prove it’s me” is something that a defiant guilty person would say.
An innocent person would never utter such a defiant challenge unless it was an innocent person who was wanting to look guilty.
Something like that would have stuck in the minds of police, a challenge like that to them may have been enough to convince them of her guilt, if only they could find the proof. So once they had enough circumstantial evidence they went full steam ahead even though there was actual physical evidence to the contrary. Something they might not have been so willing to do otherwise.
Also the incident when Paula was filmed going into Joanne’s classroom to get her coffee mug. Again this is another thing that could easily have been orchestrated by the two of them. Paula’s weak defence that she was asked to get it by Joanne could not be ascertained one way or another. It would be very easy for Paula to make herself look guilty when dealing with the police.
The fact is that it would have been very easy for them to do this. And there is nothing that suggests that it isn’t a possibility. Every aspect of the case could be explained by this.
If Joanne actually was so pathological drawn to being a victim and making false claims there is no way she would have been able to just stop doing it after this case was over. The fact that she did apparently stop doing it, only adds more weight to the possibility that it was all an elaborate act.
I don’t know how N lost her case against the police, after they arrested her WITHOUT EVIDENCE!!! That’s all I have to say.
You are right – police get away with murder and waste time trying to get justice.
Chambers is obviously mentally ill. And dangerous.
Oh my gosh! I have followed this story. Stop airing this. So much evidence is missing. The other husband must know something. If her parents are living, they must know something. Her little son must know something. The search of her home… was it done? N was cleared by evidence. Who gave the lie detector test. The one person had already stated that N was guilty. Before the test. This is sad. The school board could have done much more in discovering what took place in and outside of the school and the classroom. There is too much missing information that should have gone to forensic/DNA. The school board employee relations department should have gotten involved and could have solved this case without going to court. And have additional information to turn over to the police department and detectives. They should have done their background employee research check from previous employees. Something is still wrong? Mental illness or a potential harasser on the loose. Because it was proven in court that N did NOT do this crime. Therefore, that person is still out there and will raise its head again. This will not go away! Someone sent those letters, notes and pkgs., did anyone check to see if any items were purchased by the school with school supply funds or from a department store, etc. paper, the pink box, the ink and the typewriter all can be traced. Did anyone try to locate other typewriters other than N’s? So much appears to be disregarded in this case.
“Who gave the lie detector test. The one person had already stated that N was guilty. Before the test.”
This is how I understand the test. The machine tells the operator whether or not the person reacted to the questions (and the magnitude of the reaction). But it doesn’t – and cannot – tell the reason WHY the person reacted. It could be because the person was guilty and was scared this would be revealed. Or it could be because the person was horrified at the crime. Or maybe the person was just the nervous type.
So it is then up to the operator to determine the reason. And if they’ve already decided, one way or the other, then the chances are that is the verdict they will give.
I have distinct memories of the first time I watched this show. I hadn’t been playing close attention until I saw the shot of Carbondale City Hall. I had grown up in the area so it was a familiar site to me, being right off the main thoroughfare, US Rt 6 in that part of the county (the first parts of the expressway carrying Rt 6 on the other side of the valley opened a year later.)
What struck me about it was that in the late spring of 1996 I had a 6 month relationship end and that ex, who also resided in that part of Pennsylvania, ended up doing something to get revenge that had a lot of similarities – in particular involving typed letters placed in envelopes and into the mailbox overnight and with previously canceled stamps affixed. In my situation it was bizarre but the last letter made it clear I wasn’t involved, discussing an encounter at an event that I didn’t attend and I was halfway across the state that day. Still, I wonder if my ex read the trial coverage and decided to emulate it to get revenge for the breakup.
Thanks for writing in — I like to hear from locals who remember the setting! Your ex might have heard about the case but then again, the whole writing disturbing letters thing is a page from quite an ancient playbook.
Paula Nawrocki was my sixth grade teacher. The article states that she taught at Coolbaugh Learning Center which is incorrect. She taught at Pocono Intermediate, Chambers taught at Coolbaugh. I distinctly remember this because we received a new teacher about halfway through the 1995 school year. It was in all the local papers and the rumors followed throughout the years.
Mrs Nawrocki was my first grade teacher before this happened. She wasn’t the warmest women but she was a good teacher and she definitely didn’t do that garbage. Also she did teach at CLC. The above commenter may not realize she use to teach first grade at CLC.
Thanks for writing — glad to hear you had a good experience in Paula N.’s class. It’s OK for a teacher to be a little cold as long as she’s not mean.
I didn’t realize and I apologize.
I want to gather all of the complainers, and Joanna Chambers, all together in the same place, and knock some sense into the lot of the idiots, and keep doing so until they learn to be decent human beings in their lives. These people are supposed to be nurturing children, to educate children, and to make children into wise adults, and yet here they are all having Real Housewives/Big Brother types levels of immaturity that honestly makes babies and children seem far more adult than these drama kings and drama queens. With cases like these, among many other evil ones with agenda peddling morons that are on the left, the right, the middle, and the fringe, there is honestly no wonder that the cosmos is doomed, and the worst part about it is that this gaggle of goofs would honestly end up ironically being their own worst enemies without a finger being raised in their direction. The people on BOTH sides of the issue need to ALL grow up and be re-educated in their lives, or to be completely removed from the educational scene.
It’s not clear to me why you are lumping everyone in to blame here. JC was 100% to blame for this —- PN was a completely innocent victim who endured this extreme torment for essentially no reason that anyone was able to articulate. The justice system clearly should have handled it better, but the fact is that the justice system is not set up to handle the bizarrely irrational and pathological behavior of someone like JC. Records are mostly electronic these days, so one would hope that if something like this happened again, perhaps they would have uncovered history quicker. I just don’t understand what you would have had PN do? Give in to the intimidation? It’s absolutely true that this was horrible for the students, the school, and everyone involved. But there was a single person who caused all these things to happen. I understand the frustration of watching this and seeing the drama and its effect on the students, but I think it’s important not to dilute the blame here.
I find it someone disheartening that many are stating this woman is mentally ill…..only a mentally ill person would do these things……as someone who has a mental health diagnosis which is treated successfully, I feel it’s time we stop looking at these people that way…..there is such a thing as simply EVIL. Those of us being treated for a mental health issue are looking forward to a day when horrible behavior is not always automatically labeled as due to “mental illness” and simply bad, evil choices. More people would seek treatment if they didn’t fear the label that comes with it.
What a wild story! At least the jury did its job.
Thank goodness they had an open mind!
What is telling is that even the inventor of the polygraph said it was a bogus device and yet almost every Forensic Files episode has the same narrative, they failed the polygraph or they refused so what do they have to hide as if the device is real. There is no such thing as a lie detector test.
What is telling is that despite DNA evidence the prosecution still went after this Mrs. Nawrocki which leads me to believe because she failed the polygraph, according to the police who needed a suspect.
Hey, she picked up the mug, she failed a polygraph and somehow that trumped DNA?
No, I would have sued the district attorney to recover that $100,000 she lost defending herself against the state.
My experience with polygraphs is with the DOD, US Army Intelligence. They are nonsense and solely depends on the examiner. If you are a suspect a poly can be interpreted against you–I have seen it happen more than once.
I agree! The main value seems to be that police can use bad polygraph results to break a guilty suspect, as happened with the Chris Watts case (not a Forensic Files case, but a good the Netflix special).
So stonkingly flawed was the prosecution’s case I can only think they thought they were in too deep by the DNA stage and would lose more face by conceding the case was hopeless than losing it (a shocking motive for continuing). The prosecutor should’ve been sacked, wasting public money like this. The first duty of the prosecutor is to believe the guilt of the would-be defendant to the criminal standard based on objective appraisal of the evidence, *then* to consider there’s at least a reasonable chance of conviction (ie, prosecutor needs to think that the jury will more likely than not agree with his belief in guilt).
It seems to be that neither part of this ‘test’ could possibly have applied.
PS To clarify, the above is the two stage legal test here in England: (i) is there enough evidence against the suspect to provide a realistic prospect of conviction (ie, just more likely than not)?; and if and only if so is the second stage reached: (ii) prosecutor again reviews evidence and asks: ‘Is it in the public interest to prosecute?’ (a more nebulous consideration and one that may not apply in US).
Stage (i) comprises whether evidence is (1) reliable, (2) credible and (3) whether there is anything that might undermine the case against the defendant.
Per Nawrocki, how could one argue there was enough evidence to charge on balance? Specifically, was the evidence (1) reliable – no! – (2) credible – almost certainly not! – and (3) yes, there was significant information to undermine the case against Nawrocki (Chambers’ DNA and her mad history). Thus the first test was signally failed.
Note that the evidentiary standard for test (i) is mere conviction on the balance of probabilities. That brings the charge. But of course the jury has to be satisfied to the considerably higher criminal standard to convict. In my view Nawrocki’s case couldn’t have past test (i), let alone reach conviction.
One angle that doesn’t seem to have been raised is the possibility they conspired on this entire sordid thing together in an attempt to gain financially via subsequently suing the school and police.
As it stands, Paula was awarded 600k from the school, and she was initially going for a total of 9 million. I think she had a very good chance of also winning her case against the police because they really had nothing apart from circumstantial evidence and there was physical evidence to the contrary. How the prosecution/police were able to avoid at the bare minimum being forced into paying her legal costs is beyond me!
I think the fact that Joanne was basically free to continue on in her career subsequently and faced no legal repercussions for her falsifying evidence and giving false statements really opens the door to this sort of thing because there is seemingly no legal/financial deterrent and the possibility for significant financial advantage clearly exists, via a defendant’s subsequent lawsuits.
Interesting theory. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
J: It wasn’t raised because when there are more likely explanations the less likely are dismissible — and this is less likely. I suspect most thought ‘enough said’ when it transpired Chambers had a history of ‘victimhood’ in previous schools — very similar claims — discovered by private detective, and she’d been creative with her history. That suggested she has a screw loose (perhaps histrionic personality disorder — a psychiatric disorder distinguished by a pattern of exaggerated emotionality and attention-seeking behaviours), though, disarmingly, she apparently functioned competently as a teacher. Combining that with the farrago over the stamp apparently confirming her hand — or tongue — behind hate mail, her guilt was more or less certain.
Police and school board were utterly incompetent, and doubtless both were deeply embarrassed — they should’ve been — when the above was revealed, but I doubt Nawrocki got an apology.
Were your scenario correct it would’ve been extremely risky to engage in a fraud that would’ve elicited imprisonment if discovered for a number of felonies and no guarantee of payout in any case. If both were suing that could mean a third-party perp the police might start looking for – inc their family members potentially harassed. They would have to be highly trusting and confident in one-another that neither would ‘break’, bringing disaster to both (and there was no evidence that they’d been close in the months prior to the claims starting). They would also have to accept that one or both would likely lose their reputation, and possibly their job (Chambers kept the job but understandably lost her ‘trustworthy’ reputation) because even on cursory consideration about where this could go one couldn’t expect to be able to control events, involving as they did police and school district investigations.
Thus they’d have to have been desperate, deeply foolish, and highly other-confident to attempt this… or just lunatic, as it seems Chambers alone was.
Given Joanne appears to not have repeated any of this behavior after all this finally concluded, I would agree the theory you are proposing is possible. Joanne did do something similar previously though, which is why I think it’s pretty likely this was not a coordinated plan. But when you consider the sums involved in the lawsuits, it’s odd you don’t see more of that kind of thing. I think the sums of money involved in hiring the lawyers just to get through all of this was shockingly expensive, that might keep that type of scam from happening often. But it’s definitely something that should have been considered. A lot of the behavior like the mug incident was pretty coincidental behavior that on its own looks suspicious.
Her likely personality disorder doesn’t override her cognition. If she hasn’t repeated to some degree the behaviours it’s probably because either she’s been treated for her disorder (not curable but can be mitigated) or she knows any repeat of these events is absolutely the end of her. Maybe there has been some repeat and it’s not been publicised — we don’t know.
Nor do we know that collusion *wasn’t* considered during investigation — but as I’ve outlined above it’s much less likely than other explanations and would be quickly dismissed.
yea i think we are in pretty much agreement about the actual chances of this theory of coordination being correct. Its vanishingly low. The only reason i dont think its zero is that she seems to have quit doing this kind thing. I agree your suggestions about why she stopped are plausible, but my understanding of the version of Munchausen she appears to display is that it is particularly resistant to any kind of treatment.
But obviously we cant diagnose her by watching a tv show. The fact that she didnt repeat this kind of thing again (at least that we know of, and given her history I think any significant repeat would probably make the news) is actually a little frustrating, since if it happened again with a third person, it would be clear to pretty much everyone that Joanne is 100% the cause of all this.
I think the previous point about it not being considered was just that it wasnt mentioned. Sure, we cant know it wasnt considered, but all we have to go on is the show and a few other minor sources of information, so its all going to be pretty speculative. but thats what this forum is for. Talking about the crazy stuff. And this episode was truly one of the craziest ones, even though in the end no one was physicality harmed.
j: Well, Munchausen’s itself appears discredited, but the personality disorder alternate is, like all PDs, ‘incurable’ because ingrained, but manageable with talking and other therapy to varying extents. For all we know Chambers sought treatment to keep her behaviour in check or she simply realised she’d been ‘outed’ and could never again exhibit such behaviour in the workplace (as discussed). She’ll have retired long ago so it’s somewhat historic in issue anyway.
When you cite it happening again as better evidence, of course, but (at least) the two protracted eps we know of (composed of many more than two or three discrete acts) is, I suggest, clear evidence enough for a jury it was more likely her than Nawrocki (and I take it that if N had a history of dysfunction like C, the prosecution would have found it, so determined did they seem to be to convict).
No, no-one was physically harmed — but it some ways what happened to N was worse than limited physical harm, whereby she was almost destroyed. It would have been extremely mentally taxing, I’d have thought. Anyone who bears false witness by claiming they’ve been harmed by another (named or unnamed) is at least damaging. Perhaps the best exemplar is a male falsely accused by a female of sexual assault/rape, rationalising her lack of injury (being forced) either by the passage of time (if she reports late) or in claiming she was intoxicated and didn’t consent. Although conviction is unlikely in such a situation sans other evidence, he is always damaged — socially, professionally, mentally, etc. Mud sticks.
He’s a recent case in England where the alleged victim lied about rape multiple times by different men (damaging true rape victims’ claims):
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/13/barrow-men-falsely-accused-of-tell-court-they-tried-to-kill-themselves
At least in Chambers’ case there is small — but only small, as she was very aware of what she was doing and cunning with it — mitigation in a likely PD. Were I sentencing her, she’d get *some* credit for illness but would face the majority of the standard punishment for premeditated psychological and professional harm and potentially fraud were she seeking compensation (it’s unclear if she did, or would have (had N been convicted), claimed compensation, thus conferring the financial motive you suggested). I think she was just a mad biyatch! I’d want to know if she’d sough compensation in the earlier, other school, case.
You’re not being very nice, PDOE. There were lots of interesting, well-articulated, substantive critiques that I felt added a lot to the discussion. But hey, if you don’t have a substantive response, feel free to moan and mock women who are genuinely troubled by the substance and tenor of the remarks. Dismissiveness always helps. It’s really Christlike.