New information about principal arrested on drugs, gun charges - KFMB News 8

SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - A Paradise Hills elementary school principal remains on leave after being arrested on drugs and weapons charges.

Rachel Escobedo, principal of Lee Elementary School, is free on bail and will make her first court appearance next week.

The 45-year-old was arrested in her car on Saturday for possession of a stolen gun and drugs. She went to work on Monday, but has since been in hiding. We found her 1993 Honda Accord being cleaned out by a man who did not want to be identified, but said he had nothing to do with Escobedo's arrest.

"I've only met her once. She seemed nice. I didn't expect that from her," a parent told News 8.

We've learned the elementary school principal has a troubled marriage. Escobedo filed multiple retraining orders against her husband James Tischler saying, "…he became angry, pulled my hair, choked me and slapped me.."

Court documents reveal the couple divorced twice and filed for bankruptcy with $100,000 in credit card debt.

"She told me that things started to get really bad when she got pregnant with her young child, that she just had to get rid of him because he was doing drugs and she just couldn't have that influence in the house," neighbor John Bayes said.

Escobedo says her husband, a convicted felon who is currently on probation, has a gambling problem and a history of taking off with her car.

Police found Escobedo sitting in her Honda Accord over the weekend with a 60-year-old unidentified man. They found an open vodka bottle inside her car and a small amount of what turned out to be marijuana in an ashtray.

A search of her trunk recovered a loaded .22 caliber Ruger, 22 pills of a hydrocodone substance along with four baggies of a crystalline substance.

Escobedo was taken into custody. Her companion was released.

"I have never seen her close to high. She's always well dressed," Bayes said.