Texas Teacher Charged After Stabbing Herself and Blaming a Student
More than 100 law enforcement officers descended on Splendora High School in Montgomery County, Texas on the morning of April 9 after a panic alarm went off and reports emerged that a teacher had been stabbed by a student. The school was placed on lockdown. Parents rushed to the campus. Teachers pulled students into their rooms.
It was all a hoax — and the teacher who reported it is now facing criminal charges.
Nicole Truelove, 53, a teacher at Splendora High School, was arrested Thursday afternoon and charged with filing a false report and tampering with evidence. Investigators determined she had inflicted the injuries on herself using a blade or knife-like object, then reported to authorities that a student had attacked her with a razor blade.
"During the investigation, it was determined that there was no assault on a teacher that was committed by a student," said Rick Bass, assistant chief of operations for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. "The injuries sustained to the teacher were self-inflicted. Evidence supports that this was a hoax."
What Happened That Morning
The panic alarm went off at approximately 8:45 a.m. When officers arrived, the school was already in lockdown. School officials had sent a notice to parents that police were investigating a "physical altercation" between a student and a staff member. Students described a chaotic and frightening response as teachers rushed to secure their classrooms.
One teacher's husband told local station KPRC 2 that his wife had sent him a message saying "I love you" — the kind of message you send when you don't know what's about to happen.
When investigators examined the evidence, the account Truelove had given did not hold up. The injuries were self-inflicted. There was no student attacker. Truelove was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on Thursday afternoon and was scheduled to appear before a judge Friday morning.
The Prior Accusation
The April 9 incident was not the first time Truelove had been at the center of a high-profile allegation. In 2017, while working as a teacher at the Ferguson Unit — a state prison near Huntsville, Texas operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice — Truelove publicly alleged that an inmate had sexually assaulted her after class. She described the attack in graphic detail to local media, saying the inmate, identified as Xavier Johnson, 25, a four-time felon, had hidden behind a door and attacked her. Johnson was charged with aggravated sexual assault.
The case went to trial. Johnson was acquitted of the aggravated sexual assault charge but was found guilty on separate counts of assaulting a public servant and retaliation. Following the verdict, Johnson filed a complaint against Truelove, alleging she had provided "misleading information" to law enforcement — a complaint he later withdrew.
Montgomery County Sheriff's Office has not publicly detailed a motive for the alleged hoax.
The Response Was Appropriate
Bass defended the scale of the law enforcement response — over 100 officers for what turned out to be a fabricated incident — without hesitation. "This is what's supposed to happen when we have threats on school campuses," he said. "If it's going to be a hoax, if you're going to call in a hoax, we will hold you responsible for it."
That accountability is now being pursued through the criminal justice system. Truelove faces charges of filing a false report and tampering with evidence. Her case is pending before a Montgomery County judge.
Online court records show Truelove is scheduled for a status hearing on June 4.
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