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The lives of everyone in the town of Springfield Oregon changed on May 21st of 1998. A quiet boy named Kip Kinkel became known as “The Killer at Thurston High” after killing both of his parents, murdering two classmates, and severely injuring 24 others. There are many factors in the 15 year old boy’s life that led up to the horrific events that occurred on that day. The same factors that influenced the tragedy in occurring could have very easily insured that it never happened to begin with.
On May 20th of 1998 Kip Kinkel was suspended from Thurston High for possession of a gun in his locker. He purchased the gun from a classmate, however another student that had heard about the sale taking place, notified employees of the school who then contacted the police and had them investigate. Kip was taken into custody to the police station and then sent home with his father. No-one can be exactly sure what transpired between Kip and his father on the ride home or after getting to the house. After getting back, he took one of his guns, shot his father in the back of the head, killing him on the spot. He moved his father’s body into the bathroom and then covered him with a sheet. He waited throughout the day for his mother to come home. When his mother finally pulled into the driveway and began walking into the house, he killed her as well. He shot her five times in the head, and once in the heart.
The next day he put on a trench coat, gathered multiple guns, bullets, a knife and drove his parents’ vehicle to school. He ran into a friend in the hallway before the horrific even and told him to leave. Right afterward, the shooting spree began. Kip shot his classmate, Ben Walker in the head and then went into the cafeteria...
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...that a handful of therapy sessions were not enough to put him back on the right track, Kip Kinkel was a walking time bomb. I feel bad for him because no-one truthfully understood. Yes, the choices that he made in the end were the wrong ones. He changed the lives of many in such a negative way, that it can never be resolved. But was it really any wonder that the kid felt anyone else deserved a better life then what he had?
Works Cited
Michael Kirk and Peter J. Boyer. (2000, January 18). The killer at Thurston High. May 5, 2010, by FrontLine: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/etc/script.html
The Killer at Thurston High. Retrieved May 5, 2010, from FrontLine: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/kip/cron.html
Schaefer, R. T. (2008). Sociology. New york: Mcgraw-Hill.
McSkimming. (unknown date). What is Sociology.
It started as any ordinary day at Fowler Middle School, kids laughing and learning. But, at 8:51 AM, a classroom of students walked into a horrifying scene. Marilyn Tokzulott’s second-period class found their teacher dead on the floor behind her desk, murdered. Despite the many suspects, one stands out above all. Billy Plummer, the boyfriend of the victim's daughter, committed this murder. It is clear that the murderer was Mr.Plummer because of involvement in previous conflicts with Mrs. Tokzullot, presence at the crime scene and access to the murder weapon.
This interview was conducted by Professor Zalman and Ron Keine and is about Ron’s exoneration. Ron Keine was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a college student in Oklahoma. The duration of this case was full of corruption and ended in Ron being convicted and sentenced to death row. While being on death row, Ron thought he was going to die for a crime that he did not commit. There are so many aspects in this case, but to start the Detroit News conducted an investigation and what was uncovered was procedural misconduct. The coverage from the Detroit News was not enough for Keine and his friends to be allowed to go free, and they all remained on death row. Ron was released in 1976 after the murder weapon was found to be in possession of a
The deadliest school shooting to have ever happened in the United States at a high school or grade school, happened less than two years ago. On December 14th, 2012, Adam Lanza, who was twenty years old at the time, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, four times and then brought firearms to his former grade school Sandy Hook Elementary, and fatally shot twenty children and six adults. Then the shooter put his own gun to his head and fatally shot himself. All of the children were between the ages of six and seven years old, and all six adults who were shot and killed were females who worked at the school. Lanza's father believed that if he were there himself, his son would have had no trouble shooting and killing him too. He also theorized that Adam shot his mother four times for each of them; himself, his mother, his father, and his brother. After the tragedy, the school was torn down and many gun-control debates heated up and schools greatly improved their security to prevent anymore potential attacks. To this day, the motive of Adam Lanza, is still unknown but the effects are still felt in the world today.
Kemper felt that his grandmother treated him the same as his mother did, therefore making it easy for him to displace his anger onto her. On one August afternoon in 1963, Kemper shot his grandmother in the back of the head with a .22 caliber rifle and stabbed her repeatedly about the body. When his grandfather returned home, he also used the gun on him shooting him as he exited his vehicle (Fisher, 2003b). This was the first murders of the future serial killer known as the “Co-ed Killer”.
"In October 1997, a 16-year old in Pearl, Mississippi, first killed his mother and then went to school and shot nine students, two fatally; in December 1997 a 14-year old went to his school in West Paducah, Kentucky, killed three students and wounded five others; in March last year, two boys, aged eleven and thirteen, killed four girls and a teacher outside their school in Jonesboro, Arkansas; the next month a science teacher was shot dead, allegedly by a 14-year old, at a school dance in Edinsboro, Pennsylvania; last May in Fayetteville, Tennessee, an 18-year old student allegedly shot dead a classmate in the school car park; two days later, in Springfield, Oregon, a 15-year old opened fire at his high school, killing two teenagers and wounding more than twenty (police later found that his parents had been killed at home) ("Lesson"). On April 20th of this year, two teenagers enter their school and open fire, killing 12 students and one teacher before taking their own lives.
Perry Smith and Dick Hickock were charged with the homicides of a small town family. On November 15, 1959 they murdered the clutter family. It took place in a small town of Holcomb, Kansas. The victims of this senseless crime were Herbert Clutter, Bonnie Clutter, Nancy Clutter, and Kenyon Clutter.
The question at hand is why he suddenly made the conscious decision to no longer be associated with the crime. Immediately following their capture, the two criminals were interrogated and investigated by the officers involved in the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. As soon as Hickock comes to the realization that the police have evidence to be used against the two for conviction, Hickock disowns the crime by stating how his accomplice was the man to have been the true murderer, and he simply “couldn’t stop him” (230). Hickock’s father constantly claimes that after his son’s accident in 1950, Richard just “. . . didn’t act like the same boy” (293). The intent of this claim was to support that Hickock was involved in the murder due to his inability to distinguish right from wrong, but this claim was quickly dismissed after a psychological evaluation. During the trial, Hickock is described as “impulsive in action” and “alert” by Dr. Jones,the doctor who evaluated Hickock (294-5). Hickock was not mentally ill, nor had he ever experienced a life with a lack of support. His father and mother arrived to every trial, tried to repay his debts, and never left him behind. They provided support in the times he needed it most, and Hickcock claims “[he needed] help” from Dr. Jones during his evaluation (279). This displays him as a man with a lack of respect and remorse. He is not able to fully take responsibility for his
These two men, both coming from different backgrounds, joined together and carried out a terrible choice that rendered consequences far worse than they imagined. Living under abuse, Perry Smith never obtained the necessary integrity to be able to pause and consider how his actions might affect other people. He matured into a man who acts before he thinks, all due to the suffering he endured as a child. Exposed to a violent father who did not instill basic teachings of life, Smith knew nothing but anger and misconduct as a means of responding to the world. He knew no other life. Without exposure to proper behavior or responsible conduct, he turned into a monster capable of killing an entire family without a blink of remorse. In the heat of the moment, Perry Smith slaughtered the Clutter family and barely stopped to take a breath. What could drive a man to do this in such cold blood? The answer lies within his upbringing, and how his childhood experiences shaped him to become the murderer of a small family in Holcomb, Kansas. ¨The hypothesis of unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression.¨ (Capote 191). ¨But it is Dr. Statten´s contention that only the first murder matters psychologically, and that when
As the world recovers from recent school shootings, people wondered why these events have occurred. They are focused on drug use, violent society, video games, bullying, and mental issues to try and explain an unexplainable event. The idea that a person would shoot others for little or no reason gave little relief to the survivors.
Khadaroo, Stacy Teicher. “Why Do Kids Kill? School Murders in Sparks, Danvers Revive Questions.” Christian Science Monitor. 25 Oct 2013: n.p. SIRS Issue Researcher. Web. 6 Oct. 2015.
Craig Scott was just 16 years old when he crowded underneath a desk with his two friends while classmates, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, acted out a real-life version of a Hollywood scene of ruthless murder, shouting lines from their favorite movie while gunning down kids and teachers in the corridors of Columbine High. Craig remembers the shouting and laughter of the shooters as they burst into the library armed with sawed-off shotguns, a handgun and a 9mm semi-automatic carbine. Craig recalls how his friends were both shot, one slumped dead on either side of him, their blood soaking into his clothes. Inexplicably, Craig was uninjured, physically at least. “I was experiencing so much fear I thought my heart was going to stop beating,” he recalls (Day, 2009). Later, Craig would learn how his sister was gunned down while eating lunch on the lawn. Rachel, 17, died instantly, the first of 13 victims of mass violence who lost their lives that day in the, now infamous, massacre known simply as “Columbine.” Speaking at an event marking the tenth anniversary of that terrorizing violence, Craig says he is still reliving the horror, “…going through it…over and over again” (Day, 2009). Craig echoes the reality faced by all victims of violent trauma, and particularly those of mass violence; “My life changed that day” (Day, 2009). Victims of violent trauma face many challenges, both immediately following the initial event and long-term. Though the extent of recovery varies for individuals and may include physical, emotional, and financial trauma, victims of violence often struggle with management of the psychological impact of their experience. Like Craig, many victims of mass violence find coping with the impact of trauma chall...
Not all humans experience these life altering events in the same way. A combination of psychiatric and psychologic theories can be applied to the life of David Berkowitz form his violent experiences as a young adult to his neglect from mother figure throughout childhood. It can be said that a combination of these factors experienced throughout his life, led the Son of Sam killer to lash out his frustration on innocent victims in order to receive relief from a buildup of years of aggressive violent thoughts and
Johnson, Jason B. “ Slain Teen’s family: Cops eyeing 7-10 suspects.” Boston Herald. 7 ,April 1995
On Monday, March 21, 2005, a 16-year old boy by the name Jeffrey Weise, opened fire on his grandfather, grandfather’s girlfriend, Red Lake Senior High School students and staff, and eventually killed himself. Weise’s rampage began with the killing of his grandfather, Daryl Lussier, 52, and grandfather’s companion, Michelle Signa, 32, early Monday morning before heading to Red Lake Senior High School. Lussier was “a veteran sergeant with the Red Lake police department” (Maag 2005: 4), who had a “.40-cal. handgun and 12-gauge shotgun” (Magg 2005: 4) located within the home. From previous e...
“People are so unaware...well, Ignorance is bliss I guess… that would explain my depression.” (Klebold, Dylan). With that sentence, I divulged myself into the most horrendous, sad journal I have ever read, hoping to gain some insight into a disturbed young man’s mind. On April 20th, 1999, Dylan Klebold accompanied his friend, Eric Harris, in one of the most publicized and shocking school shootings of the modern day--The Columbine Massacre. With their sawed-off shotguns and godlike dispositions, the boys exacted their revenge not only on their peers, but on themselves. As the nightmare collapsed, and thirteen people lay dead, the questions began. How could two boys so young commit this crime? What forced them to be this way? For the Klebold family, one question remained: How had Dylan become involved in one of the crimes of the century?