Former B-W School Board Member Loses Appeal in Attempted-Murder Case

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania on Wednesday upheld the conviction of former Baldwin-Whitehall School Board member Beverly Jo Coon, 51, who was sentenced in December 2006 to 6 to 20 years in prison for the attempted murder of former Bethel Park School District Superintendent Ronald Grimm in September 2005.

Coon's appeal argument was that her attorney, Eric Fischer, failed to adequately defend her with regard to the admission of evidence and jury instructions. The Superior Court disagreed.

Prosectors successfully argued during Coon's jury trial in 2006 that she had drugged Grimm, with whom she was having an affair, before trying to set him on fire at the Monroe Village Apartments complex in Monroeville.

Coon, the daughter-in-law of late Allegheny County Sheriff Eugene L. "Gene" Coon, is serving time at a state correctional institution in Cambridge Springs.

Grimm also formerly served as superintendent in the Steel Valley and school districts.