`Get Her Off The Team' -- Man Wrote Threatening Letters To Keep Daughter From Cheerleading

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A man who said he couldn't afford to let his daughter be a high-school cheerleader pleaded guilty to sending letters threatening to kill her if she wasn't taken off the squad.

Bennie Lee Doan wrote the letters as if they had been written by a disgruntled parent whose daughter did not make the cheerleading squad. The letters demand that his daughter, 15-year-old Jennie Doan, be dismissed from the Harrison County High School squad or be killed.

The handwritten letters, made public during Doan's plea hearing in federal court yesterday, contained threatening poetry and praise for a Texas cheerleader's mother who allegedly tried to get a rival's mother killed.

An FBI agent who investigated the case said Doan never planned to harm his daughter.

In court, Doan said he mailed the four letters in late September because he couldn't afford for Jennie to remain on the squad.

Doan, 40, of Cynthiana, pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications through the mail. He faces as many as five years in prison. He was allowed to remain free on bond until his sentencing Jan. 8.

The letters were mailed to the school's principal, the cheerleading coach, Doan's father-in-law and Doan's home.

"It doesn't really matter what ya say or do. She's dead!!!!" Doan wrote in one of the letters. In another, he wrote: "Do you want to go to a funeral. Get her off the team at once!" In two letters, he describes seeing Jennie through the scope of his rifle. Each letter was signed "Trigger Happy."