6th-grade teacher found stabbed to death was a 'mother figure' to students

— -- Days after a sixth-grade teacher was found mysteriously stabbed to death in her Ohio home, a former student opened up to ABC News about all that she learned from the woman she described as her mentor.

On Monday night, officers responded to a home in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville for a possible homicide, where they found 49-year-old Melinda Pleskovic with stab wounds, the Strongsville Police Department said.

In a 911 call, a man identifying himself as Pleskovic's husband, Bruce Pleskovic, said, "I think someone killed my wife."

"Looks like she has stab wounds on her back," he said. "There's a pool of blood. ... I can't believe this."

Melinda Pleskovic was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. The Strongsville Police Department said today no arrests have been made in the case.

The slain teacher, who most recently worked at Strongsville Middle School, had been with the district for the last 27 years, Strongsville Schools Superintendent Cameron Ryba said.

Hannah Lipowski, who was a sixth-grade student of hers five years ago, described Melinda Pleskovic as "one of the most lighthearted, kindhearted women I have had the pleasure of knowing."

"She was the one person that you could go to as your mother figure in school," Lipowski told ABC News. "She was the one who taught you how to be disciplined, but taught you how to deal with problems. And taught you that school was about more than just academics -- it was about bettering who you were as a person and who were you going to become later in life."

"She is the one teacher that remained a part of students' lives as they left her classroom," Lipowski said. "She was a friendly face in times of need and in times of happiness. ... She could always find a way to make me realize that things were gonna be OK."

Lipowski said what she'll remember most is "something that she taught me as a 12-year-old that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life." Lipowski said that lesson was that being a woman is not a disadvantage, but "the greatest gift that you can have in this world ... because you have the biggest right to form your own opinions and to speak them loudly and to never back down from what you think and what you stand for."

"The community will miss her tremendously," Lipowski said.

The Pleskovics had reported a string of incidents to police throughout the year, including a number of alleged break-ins.

ABC News' Michael DelMoro and Kelly Mckelvey contributed to this report.