By Cathy Logg and Scott North
Herald Writers
ARLINGTON — A Lakewood High School student who had been expelled and was facing sentencing for harassing another student took his obsession with that girl back to school Monday when he allegedly took her sophomore English class hostage and held her "pinned in a corner" at knifepoint.
The 20 students and teacher Risa Livingston were unharmed.
Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Mike Anderson, who is assigned to the school, arrested David Lengenfelder at gunpoint and recovered the knives.
The frightening incident and a 90-minute lockdown rattled students and staff, and some students later went home. School officials sent Livingston home.
After school, the boy’s teen-age victim stood near a school employee in the parking lot, swaddled from her shoulders to her feet in a colorfully striped blanket as light rain fell 
"She’s pretty shook up," said sophomore Katie Gillis, 16, a friend and classmate.
John Murphy, the father of the 15-year-old harassment victim, said another girl in the class distracted the armed teen until Deputy Anderson arrived.
The second girl "put herself between this kid and my daughter and effectively saved her life," Murphy said.
"It could have been Columbine all over again," he said, saying it was "amazing" the boy "had knives instead of a gun."
"I don’t know what to say," said the boy’s father, whose name also is David Lengenfelder. "We’re totally shocked that this happened," he said of himself, his wife and David’s 15-year-old brother. "He’d been going to counseling every week. I talked to the counselor today. He was getting past this and was looking forward to getting back into school in the fall.
"We just can’t believe it. We feel incredibly sorry this happened. We all thought we were taking the right steps to heal him, but I guess we didn’t know what was going on in his head."
The 17-year-old Arlington boy was booked into the Snohomish County Jail, where he was being held for investigation of second-degree assault and kidnapping, said Jim Townsend, the county’s chief criminal deputy prosecutor.
The teen is being treated as an adult because of the seriousness of the allegations. He was scheduled to make a first court appearance today for a bail hearing.
He had been out on bail, awaiting sentencing for a juvenile felony harassment conviction involving the same girl, court papers say.
The disturbing behavior began in November when the girl said she started receiving threatening and sexually graphic letters at her locker. Some of the letters were signed "Sexy," while others demanded that she write back, and were signed "Die my love," documents show.
The girl told her parents and school officials late that month. The teen-age boy was connected to the letters in February after a teacher saw him with a notebook that contained a letter addressed to the girl.
When interviewed by detectives, the boy confessed to writing the letters and provided additional ones he said he had planned to deliver. He also supplied a notebook of stories depicting violent assaults, beatings and rapes, according to court papers.
The teen admitted he wrote letters to the girl "to scare her and that he knew she would take them as a threat and be afraid," deputy prosecutor Bonnie Tweten wrote. The teen "said he enjoyed seeing the fear his letters created in" the girl.
Lengenfelder was charged in the Juvenile Division of Snohomish County Superior Court and later pleaded guilty to felony harassment. He was free on $2,500 bail awaiting sentencing scheduled for June 5.
Prosecutors two weeks ago tried to have Lengenfelder’s bail revoked after a violent incident involving his father, Townsend said. They’d also filed documents alerting the court that the two- to 10-day sentence the teen faced in juvenile detention was inadequate punishment for his crime, and that they intended to seek a longer sentence.
If convicted as an adult for Monday’s incident, the teen likely will face a prison sentence of three years or more.
School counselors were available for shaken students and staff Monday and will be on campus today, district superintendent Kristine McDuffy said.
The incident at the school in the 17000 block of 11th Avenue NE began at 9:36 a.m., sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen said.
Lengenfelder, armed with 10-inch and 12-inch chef’s knives, walked past sophomore April Worthan, 16, in the hallway.
"He walked past me in all black, and smiled," she said. "I saw him pull out the knives from his pockets. I knew he wasn’t supposed to be here."
She ran to the office to notify school officials, she said.
He ordered the victim to the front of the room and held her, pinned in a corner, threatening her with the knives, Jorgensen said. Another girl in the class tried to help the girl and he also threatened her, she said.
Principal Catherine Matthews entered the room and tried to defuse the situation.
"He approached her in a very threatening, intimidating manner," Jorgensen said.
"He was armed and dangerous. He didn’t seem to have any fear," she said.
That prompted Deputy Anderson to enter with his gun drawn.
The school remained locked down while deputies searched it to ensure there were no other suspects, Jorgensen said.
The district sent a letter home to all 2,500 students’ families explaining what happened. Nearly 800 students attend the high school.
The staff and students responded exceptionally well, with the school being locked down "within seconds" and all students quickly accounted for, McDuffy said. She praised Livingston’s handling of the situation before Lengenfelder’s arrest.
Lengenfelder’s father said his son was not attending school. Arlington School District had agreed to take him in the fall, he said. The boy was employed and called his probation officer three times daily, he said.
He expressed sorrow and concern for the girl.
"David’s not a violent person. He’s usually a kid that defends other children."
He described his son as immature.
"It’s serious. It’s not like he did before, leaving notes in a locker. This is way over the edge, a lot more than we thought. The family is devastated."
Associated Press and Herald Writer Jim Haley contributed to this report.
You can call Herald Writer Cathy Logg at 425-339-3437 or send e-mail to logg@heraldnet.com.
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