A former Ohio State teaching assistant will be charged with attempted murder and kidnapping after she allegedly shot her ex-fiancé and then forced him into her car Tuesday morning, Dublin police said.
Thirty-year-old Melissa “Missie” Stredney of 3081 Wakefern Place in Columbus taught a lab section of chemistry 122 before OSU fired her in February 2009 after receiving reports of misconduct.
Dublin police received a 911 call at 7:53 a.m. Tuesday saying a woman with a gun was trying to force a man into her silver Chevrolet Cavalier in the back parking lot of NCO Financial Systems at 5626 Frantz Road.
Police spotted and pulled over the car a mile from the scene and took Stredney into custody.
A handgun believed to have been used in the shooting was recovered in a road median.
The victim, identified as 30-year-old Jamie Hart, was flown to Grant Medical Center in critical condition. The hospital has since said his condition has stabilized, and Hart is expected to survive.
Police said they were unsure how many times Hart was shot.
No one else was injured in the shooting.
The investigation so far has shown no connection between Stredney and NCO Financial Systems, according to the City of Dublin Police website.
According to an article from Ohio’s Tribune Chronicle website dated July 25, Stredney and Hart were engaged to be married in October 2010.
Dublin police spokesperson Megan Canavan said for reasons still unclear, the relationship ended and Stredney and Hart didn’t get married, and that police believe the break-up was Stredney’s motive for the shooting.
The Lantern reported in March 2009 that Stredney had been fired Feb. 12 after OSU learned she canceled a lab and told students what to write for their reports. A few days later, Stredney sent the class an e-mail saying how she was “pissed off” the students “ratted” her out and threatened to “go into Carmen…and f–k with (their) midterm exam grades.”
Stredney continued to send her former students threatening e-mails until chemistry professors and a police officer met with students Feb. 17, 2009, to say their labs would go on as scheduled and to contact them if the e-mails persisted.
Stredney began teaching in the fifth week of Winter Quarter 2009 after the previous teaching assistant fell ill. Students reported that on Stredney’s first lab day, she told them she “hated” being there, and that they could write funny stories at the end of their lab reports and it wouldn’t matter.
Stredney graduated from OSU in 2004 with a bachelor’s of arts degree in chemistry. Stredney is pursuing a bachelor’s of science degree in pharmaceutical sciences but is not enrolled for Winter Quarter 2011.
Robert Tatz, the director of chemistry 122 who introduced Stredney as a teaching assistant, declined to comment.
Attempts to reach NCO Financial and the Stredney family were unsuccessful.
Rick Schanz contributed to this story.
