SPANAWAY, Wash. (AP) _ A 14-year-old girl apparently distraught over a failed romance and bad grades fatally shot her ex-boyfriend and another youth at their junior high school before killing herself, authorities said Wednesday.
The second youth was shot while trying to prevent H S from shooting her 15-year-old ex-boyfriend, G P, a witness said.
P died in the snowy schoolyard Tuesday afternoon and C R, 14, died Tuesday night at Madigan Army Medical Center. The girl died at the hospital Wednesday morning, hospital spokesman M J said.
Both boys, members of the Spanaway Junior High School wrestling team, had been working out at the school gym in this suburban Tacoma community when the shootings occurred.
″Apparently the girl used to date one of these boys, and recently that relationship had gone sour,″ said Pierce County Sheriff’s Capt. M F. ″Apparently she was distraught over it.″
The girl also had slashed her wrists last week because she was depressed over bad grades, sheriff’s Sgt. T. M said.
″It was just one of those very tragic teen-age things,″ said G H, superintendent of the Bethel School District. ″None of them were discipline problems to my knowledge. It was just an impromptu depression and a resolution to that problem.″
F said youths who knew the girl said she told them she had decided to kill P. She got a ″.22-caliber semi-automatic rifle that belonged to her family, loaded it, and got a ride over to the school with a friend,″ F said.
The friend, who was not identified, apparently didn’t know of her plans, he said.
M H, an eighth grader who witnessed the shooting, said he walked out of the gym to find her holding the rifle.
″H asked me to go find P and bring him here,″ H said. ″What are you going to do, blow his brains out?″ H said he asked her.
″ ‘No, I don’t even know how to load this thing,’ ″ H recalled the girl saying.
At that moment, H said, P and R walked into view and Ms. S pointed the rifle at Pickett.
″C—— (R) stepped in to try to stop her from shooting Pickett,″ said Hone, and both boys were shot. Hone said he ran away.
The girl also fled but returned, rifle in hand, several hours later.
″Officers confronted her and ordered her several times to drop her weapon and she refused,″ M said. ″Several officers were within (several) feet of her, and were slowly moving in to disarm her when she put the weapon to her head and pulled the trigger.″
H L S, 14, of Spanaway, Washington, who died Wednesday after a shooting was born in Wurzburg, West Germany.
A ninth grader at Spanaway Junior High School, she was a member of the school's Honor Society, served as a teachers' aide and was active in gymnastics.