LOWER SWATARA TOWNSHIP, DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa.–A Philadelphia woman was arrested Wednesday after police say she made death threats toward Pennsylvania Lottery employees.
Towanda Shields, 46, is charged with three counts of terroristic threats, 25 counts of harassment and 25 counts of stalking. She was taken into custody Wednesday in Philadelphia on a warrant issued by Lower Swatara Township Police.
According to police, Shields made 53 threatening calls to the Pennsylvania Lottery, which is based in Lower Swatara Township, between April and December 2016.
Police said Shields became upset that she never won the lottery and blamed the agency for conspiring against her to prevent her from winning and stealing her money.
Shields’ calls became more hostile, threatening and sexually vulgar in nature in October 2016, according to the criminal complaint. Shields stated in a voicemail she intended to kill lottery employees in Philadelphia, where she buys her lottery tickets on Halloween, according to court documents.
She also claimed to have looked up an employee on Facebook and stated she knows where all the employees live because she “googled them up on the google,” court records state.
Shields also made threats against employee’s families and claimed she had “goons’ whom she already paid $500 to hurt them, according to the criminal complaint.
She went onto say that if the police show up, people are going to die because she has freedom of speech and can say whatever she wants. During a text exchange with police, Shields said she did not care if police come to arrest her and that she was going to New York.
She was extradited back to Dauphin County on Thursday and arraigned on $75,000 bail.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for January 19.
