It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum

Topics => General Board => Topic started by: trapeze on March 22, 2012, 07:44:56 PM

Title: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: trapeze on March 22, 2012, 07:44:56 PM: This is about as personal as this stuff gets. At least it is as personal as I would ever want it to get. And honestly, I wish it wasn't. I would have been blissfully ignorant but for the connection to my family.

I received a call on Tuesday evening from my mother. She was asking for prayer for my niece...my brother's daughter. She is eleven years old. They live in Houston. My mother has been helping out with my brother's kids (my sister-in-law had eye surgery recently) and, as usual, had picked up my niece from school that day. She remarked that her favorite teacher had not been there and wondered if he was ill. She said that he was such a nice man that he was probably helping someone else who was sick. My mother didn't think very much of it at the time and dropped her off at home. A couple of hours later she got a call from my sister-in-law who told my mother that my niece's teacher had been murdered.

Except it was worse. Much worse.

They had found her teacher at home. He had been shot. So had his wife, also found dead. So was his son, also found dead. They had to tell her and it was going to have to be that night. The alternative would be to tell her the next morning and the consensus was that it would be worse for her to hear what happened just before going to school. Because there would be school the next day. The school authorities had decided to tell all of the children at the elementary school and deal with it. You can imagine how traumatic that was going to be...to be told that your favorite teacher was dead...murdered...just before going to bed. Poor kid.

I didn't bother blogging about this that evening or the next because I wanted to wait until more of the story had developed. And now it has.

The killer aspired to be the next Columbine killer. He had practiced killing animals for years. He had taken shots at the adjacent high school. There is unconfirmed word tonight that he may have had potential accomplices inside the adjacent high school.

So, what was the connection to my niece's teacher?

He was his son.

Yes, he warmed up for his mass murder by killing his father, mother and his older brother. His target wasn't the elementary school that his father taught at but the high school a few hundred yards away. He had a large collection of firearms and many, many rounds of ammunition for each. When he was captured (and thankfully he was) by the Texas Rangers in nearby Magnolia he had a .223 rifle and a 9mm pistol with him...purportedly the weapons used to kill his family. The killings appeared to have happened over the weekend...perhaps on Sunday evening. I think that he had a younger brother who escaped death by his absence from the home.

He has made a full confession to the authorities and is in the county jail. His bail is in the neighborhood of $5 million.

I don't know if this will ever make the national news. But it could have.

Here are some news links to the story...

KPRC Television (http://www.click2houston.com/news/Waller-County-triple-murder-suspect-studied-serial-killers-researched-mass-shootings/-/1735978/9669476/-/fyxta6/-/index.html) Video at this one.

ABC News website story (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-suspect-deaths-studied-serial-killers-15979613#.T2vFi3hGGWA)

Another ABC News report. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-admits-killing-family-police/story?id=15979705#.T2vF7nhGGWA) Video at this one but inexplicably it's about the VA Tech mass murder...someone at ABC has their head up their ass.

The local ABC affiliate's report is here. (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8590927) With the right video.

Houston Chronicle story here. (http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Waller-shooting-suspect-studied-serial-killers-3427179.php)
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: trapeze on March 22, 2012, 07:51:08 PM: (http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/12/30/42/2721976/3/628x471.jpg)

The face of evil.

Posted on Facebook...of course.

(http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/12/30/24/2721055/5/628x471.jpg)

I honestly do not know how stuff like this isn't sort of figured out in advance.

(http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/12/27/74/2719541/16/628x471.jpg)

Hard to say for sure but I would guess that is a Glock with an extended magazine.

Very Columbinesque.
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: charlesoakwood on March 22, 2012, 08:28:00 PM: "Trey Sesler mentioned ongoing friction with his father. Smith said that friction centered around the father being bothered at his son spending so much time on the couch playing video games and having no gainful employment, while continuing to live at home.

"It kept coming back (to that)," said Smith. "

ETA:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-admits-killing-family-police/story?id=15979705#.T2vfTUe8VW1 (http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-admits-killing-family-police/story?id=15979705#.T2vfTUe8VW1) Pathetically, ABC couldn't get actual video from the local affiliate so they offer Virginia Tech. Very appropriate substitution considering there was no actual school shooting.
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: trapeze on March 22, 2012, 09:02:38 PM: Yeah, I read that. That part sounds like bullsh*t to me. An excuse.

This nut dwelled on murder and killing for years.

The part about where he killed small animals, lit fires (even during last year's drought) and took pot shots at the school is, to me, revealing. This is all classic pre-big time crime behavior.

The study of serial killers. Of Columbine.

This wasn't your typical grown child at home situation.

99.999% of grown children when similarly confronted will just leave. Not this guy.

I am hearing a lot of rumor/anecdotal stuff out of Houston via family. One of the things being talked about is that he planned to kill the family all along. He is said to have not wanted them to be alive and have to deal with being related to a mass murderer after he carried out his attack on the school. Twisted logic but about what you could expect from a deranged mind.
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: IronDioPriest on March 22, 2012, 09:54:15 PM: The human race is blessed and cursed. Our cognizance and ability to choose good or evil begets the pinnacle of beauty, and the depths of hell. Why choose hell?

I acknowledge raw evil for its own sake when I see it, but aside from Satan, I don't know where it comes from or why. Maybe Satan is the only answer required to explain it fully.

I hope your niece and kin are dealing with it OK Trap.

::praying::
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: trapeze on March 22, 2012, 11:46:29 PM: I haven't spoken with my brother yet. I will call him tomorrow and ask how everyone is holding up.

I'm sorry for the family that was murdered but their deaths probably saved untold others from a similar fate. This guy was going to explode but for one reason or another he limited his destruction to his own family. He could just as easily have gone into a school on Monday morning or any number of other places and cut down innocents.
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: Sectionhand on March 23, 2012, 04:35:07 AM: I don't understand how a professional educator ( his father ) couldn't see the red flags all over this kid like post-it notes !
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: trapeze on March 23, 2012, 08:08:04 AM: He was old enough at 21 to buy the guns but didn't have a job to pay for them. That would be another question.
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: Libertas on March 23, 2012, 08:37:46 AM: Dear God what a horrific story! I do pray your niece is able to process this properly. It is chilling that a person who is always around kids can miss warning signs and take action to help his son, but not even people who are close can always know the evil that lurks in anothers heart. This is a brutal and horrible event, getting anybody of any age to understand or cope with it is really asking a lot. We can only pray that those affected are comforted as best as possible and given time they emerge stronger not weaker.
Title: Re: The Next Columbine...that wasn't.
Post by: AlanS on March 23, 2012, 06:28:23 PM: Our prayers go out to the victims family and to yours, Trap. ::praying::