| 1998 Thurston High School shooting | |
|---|---|
 The first memorial after the Thurston shooting | |
| Location | Springfield, Oregon, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 44°02′58″N122°55′29″W / 44.04944°N 122.92472°W /44.04944; -122.92472 |
| Date | Murder of parents: May 20, 1998 (1998-05-20) Shooting: May 21, 1998 (1998-05-21) 7:55 a.m. (PST) |
| Target | Students and staff atThurston High School |
Attack type | Spree killing,mass shooting,school shooting,parricide |
| Weapons |
|
| Deaths | 4 (including the perpetrator's parents at home) |
| Injured | 25[1] |
| Perpetrator | Kipland Kinkel |
| Defender | Jacob Ryker |
| Verdict | Pleaded guilty |
| Convictions | Murder (4 counts),attempted murder (26 counts)[a][2] |
| Sentence | 111 years imprisonment without the possibility ofparole |
On May 21, 1998, 15-year-old freshman student Kipland Kinkel opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the cafeteria ofThurston High School inSpringfield, Oregon, United States, killing 2 of his classmates and wounding 25 others.[1] He had killed his parents at the family home the previous day, following his suspension pending anexpulsion hearing after he admitted to school officials that he was keeping a stolen handgun in his locker. Fellow students subdued him, leading to his arrest. He later characterized his actions asan attempt to get others to kill him, since he wanted totake his own life after killing his parents but could not bring himself to.
During the year before the shooting, Kinkel displayed increasingly aberrant behavior and a heightened fascination with weapons and death, leading his parents to take him to a psychologist, who diagnosed Kinkel withmajor depressive disorder. Kinkel's parents had not disclosed any histories ofmental illness in their families, and Kinkel himself had not told anyone abouthaving heard voices urging him to violence since he was 12, out offear of being ostracized or institutionalized. After the shooting, Kinkel pled guilty tomurder andattempted murder and was sentenced to 111 years in prison without the possibility of parole; a sentence upheld on appeal. He was additionally diagnosed withparanoid schizophrenia and began takingantipsychotic medication. He is currently incarcerated atOregon State Correctional Institution inSalem.
The shooting made national news, as the latest in a series of school shootings over the previous year. Kinkel's was seen as more egregious than the earlier ones before since he had gone into a crowded internal space and indiscriminately opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle. PresidentBill Clinton spoke at the high school a month later about the issue. A memorial outside the school memorializes the two students killed.
Kipland Kinkel | |
|---|---|
 Kinkel being escorted by police officers | |
| Born | Kipland Phillip Kinkel (1982-08-30)August 30, 1982 (age 42) Springfield, Oregon, U.S. |
| Motive | Allegedmental illness |
Kipland Phillip Kinkel (born August 30, 1982), known as "Kip", is the second child of William and Faith Kinkel (née Zuranski). His parents were both Spanish teachers; Faith taught Spanish atSpringfield High School, and William had taught at Thurston High School andLane Community College;[3] William had retired three years before the shooting while Faith was still working.[4]
There was a history of serious mental illnesses in both sides of the family. Faith and William concealed this from psychologists;[5] investigators hired by Kip's lawyers uncovered it, including one uncle who had stabbed a state trooper after a traffic stop in the late 1940s, believing the man had killed his brother during the war.[4]
According to all accounts, Kinkel's parents were loving and supportive. His older sister Kristin was a gifted student. The family spent asabbatical year in Spain when Kip was six, where he attended a Spanish-speaking kindergarten. Kip reportedly attended in an "unnormal" way, and his family said that he struggled with the curriculum.[1] When he returned to Oregon, he attendedelementary school in the small community ofWalterville, about 5 miles (8 km) east of Springfield. His teachers considered him immature and lacking physical and emotional development. Based on the recommendation of his teachers, Kip's parents had him repeat the first grade.[1] During that year, he was diagnosed withdyslexia, which became worse, and placed in extensivespecial education classes by the beginning of second grade.
Kip had an interest in firearms and explosives from an early age that grew in puberty; he began making bombs, mostly gasoline-based, and detonating them in a nearby quarry to assuage his anger.[4] William initially wanted to discourage his son from violence, but later enrolled Kip in gun safety courses, buying him a9mmGlock handgun and eventually a.22 caliberrifle at the age of 15.[1] He also passed down a .22 single-shot rifle he had received at age 12 to his son. Faith initially disapproved of the purchases but relented when his psychologist "gave her emotional permission to say yes." Kip and William used the guns for target shooting near their home.[4]
Classmates at Thurston described Kinkel as strange and morbid. Others characterized him as psychotic orschizoid, enjoying the music of rock bands such asNine Inch Nails,Rage Against the Machine, andMarilyn Manson.[6][7][8] He constantly talked about committing acts of violence, telling friends that he wanted to join theU.S. Army after graduation to find out what it was like to kill someone. When asked about a family trip toDisneyland, he commented that he wanted to "punchMickey Mouse in the nose."[9] He once gave a "how-to" speech in bomb-making to his speech class and set off "stink bombs" in the lockers of classmates. Kinkel studiedWilliam Shakespeare'sRomeo & Juliet in his English class and related with the protagonists and became enamored with the1996 modernized film adaptation, which featured heavy use of firearms.[1]
Kip's parents enrolled him inanger management and had him evaluated by apsychologist, Jeffrey Hicks. Kinkel saw the psychologist over a period of six months. He was diagnosed with depression and began a prescription forProzac. Eight weeks later, Kip, his mother, and Hicks agreed that Kinkel was doing well enough to stop the sessions. However, Kip did not refill his Prozac prescription when it ran out in late 1997.[4]
Eventually, Kinkel began to have paranoid delusions, believing that the government had implanted a computer chip in his brain and that the Chinese were going to invade the West Coast.[10][11] He described threevoices that were in his head: "Voice A", who commanded Kinkel to commit violent acts, "Voice B", who repeated insulting and depressive statements at Kip's expense, and "Voice C", who constantly echoed what A and B said. He claimed that he felt punished by God for being subjected to these voices, and that it was Voice A who instigated the killing of his parents and the subsequent attack at the school.[12]
Kinkel exhibited signs ofparanoid schizophrenia, the full extent of which became apparent only after his trial. He had gone to great lengths to hide any symptoms due toa fear of being labelled abnormal or "mentally retarded", being disliked by girls, or being institutionalized. After the shooting, he told examining psychiatrists about how he would hear voices in his head since he had turned 12, which were so insistent that he consideredself-harm to suppress them. Instead, he tried to drown them out by playing loud music on his headphones, and bike riding.[4]
On May 20, 1998, Kinkel wassuspended after being found in possession of a loaded, stolen handgun on school grounds. A friend of Kinkel's had stolen the pistol from the father of another friend and arranged to sell the weapon, aBeretta Model 90.32-caliberpistol, to Kinkel the night before, for $110 ($200 in 2024[13]).[4] Kinkel then put the gun, loaded with a nine-roundmagazine, in a paper bag and left it in his locker. When the gun's owner discovered the theft, he reported it to the police and supplied the names of students he believed might have stolen the firearm; Kinkel was not one of them. The school became aware of his possible involvement and questioned him. When he was checked for weapons, he reportedly stated: "Look, I'm gonna be square with you guys; the gun's in my locker." Kinkel was suspended pending anexpulsion hearing, and he and the friend were arrested. Kinkel was released from police custody and driven home by his father, who told him he would be sent tomilitary school if he did not improve his behavior.[14] When his father lectured him while driving him home from the police station after the firearm incident, Kinkel said, the voices in his head were so loud that he was unable to hear his father.[4]
Shortly before his death, William confided to a friend that he was "terrified" and had run out of options to help his son.[15]
According to Kinkel's taped confession, at about 3 p.m. that day, he retrieved hisRuger .22-calibersemi-automatic rifle from his bedroom and ammunition from his parents' bedroom. He then went to the kitchen and shot his father once in the back of the head, before dragging his body into the bathroom and covering it with a sheet.[1] When his mother arrived home at about 6:30 p.m., he met her in the garage, told her he loved her, then shot her six times: twice in the back of the head, three times in the face, and once in the heart. He then dragged her body across the floor and covered it with a sheet.[1]
Throughout the next morning, Kinkel repeatedly played a recording of "Liebestod", the final dramaticaria fromWagner'soperaTristan und Isolde, on the family'ssound system.[1][16] The recording was featured inRomeo + Juliet and included in asoundtrack release for the film.[17] When police arrived at the house, they found this "opera music" from the soundtrack playing loudly with the CD player set to continuous play.[1] In a note Kinkel left on a coffee table in the living room, he described his motive for killing his parents thus: "I just got twofelonies on my record. My parents can't take that! It would destroy them. The embarrassment would be too much for them. They couldn't live with themselves." But as the note continues, he attempts to describe his mental state: "My head just doesn't work right. God damn these VOICES inside my head. ... I have to kill people. I don't know why. ... I have no other choice."[18]
On May 21, Kinkel drove his mother'sFord Explorer to the high school. He wore atrench coat to hide the five weapons he carried: two hunting knives, his rifle, a9×19mmGlock 19 pistol, and a.22-caliberRuger MK II pistol. He was carrying 1,127 rounds of ammunition.[19]
Kinkel parked on 61st Street, two blocks from the school, then jogged to the campus, entered the patio area and fired two shots, fatally wounding 16-year-old Ben Walker and wounding another. He went to the cafeteria after turning down the hallway and, walking across it, fired the remaining 48 rounds from his rifle, wounding 24 students and killing 17-year-old Mikael Nickolauson.[20] Kinkel fired a total of 51 rounds, 37 of which struck students, and killed two.[19] Three hundred students were present during the event.[21]
When Kinkel's rifle ran out of ammunition and he began to reload, wounded student Jacob Ryker tackled him, assisted by several other students. Kinkel drew the Glock from his belt and fired one shot before he was disarmed, injuring Ryker again as well as another student. He yelled at the students, "Just kill me!" The students restrained Kinkel until the police arrived and arrested him.[22] A total of seven students were involved in subduing and disarming Kinkel.[23] In custody, Kinkel retrieved a knife that was secured on his leg and attacked a police officer, begging to be fatally shot. The officer subdued him with pepper spray.[11]
Nickolauson died at the scene; Walker died after being transported to the hospital and kept on life support until his parents arrived. The other students, including Ryker, were also taken to the hospital with a variety of wounds. Ryker had a perforated lung, but he made a full recovery. He received theBoy Scouts of AmericaHonor Medal with Crossed Palms for his heroism on the day of the attack.[24]
In the wake of the shooting, over 200 counselors volunteered and over $400,000 of aid money was given in the form of the Thurston Healing Fund.[21] A scholarship was created for school graduates in remembrance of the shooting. In 2003, a permanent memorial was created and dedicated at the school in memory of the event.[21] It has a curved wall and a plaque with the names of the two students killed; plans to also include Kinkel's parents' were dropped after debate.[4]
The shooting made national news. Since the preceding October, there had been four other school shootings around the country.[b] While mass shootings had not been uncommon in the U.S., they had very rarely happened at schools.[c] The earlier shootings had occurred outside schools or had involved pistols. Kinkel, by contrast, had entered the school with a semi-automatic rifle and opened fire on a crowded cafeteria. "Something like this was unimaginable at that point in time," recalledPeter DeFazio, who lived near the school and represented the area in theU.S. House of Representatives. Many of the students at the time still live in Springfield. Thurston's current dean of students, a friend who had to call Kristin Kinkel to let her know what had happened, considers the shooting "our9/11".[4]
Springfield adopted the slogan "Let it end here" in response to the tragedy. In June, PresidentBill Clinton spoke at the school, calling the shooting "a traumatic experience for all of America ... Everybody who has looked at you knows that this is a good community that they'd be proud to live in, and, therefore, it could happen anywhere."[4]
At the police station, Kinkel lunged at Officer Al Warthen with his knife, screaming, "Shoot me, kill me!" The officer repelled Kinkel withpepper spray. Kinkel later said that he wanted to trick the officer intoshooting him, as he had wanted to kill himself after killing his parents but could not bring himself to do so.[11]
In jail, Kinkel was placed on suicide watch. He attempted to kill himself by starvation, but stopped once his sister, Kristin, began visiting him. He did not resume the attempts when she had to leave the state to finish her undergraduate degree because he "didn't want her to have to fly right back [to Springfield] again."[4]
At his sentencing, the defense presented experts on mental health to show that Kinkel wasmentally ill. Hicks said that he was in satisfactory mental health. He had seen Kinkel for nine sessions and treated him formajor depression. William and Faith terminated the therapy because Kinkel was responding well to treatment and ceased to show symptoms of depression.[25]
On September 24, 1999, three days beforejury selection was set to begin, Kinkel pleaded guilty tomurder andattempted murder, forgoing the possibility of beingacquitted by reason ofinsanity. In November 1999, Kinkel was sentenced to more than 111 years in prison without the possibility ofparole. At the sentencing, Kinkel apologized to the court both for the murder of his parents and for the shooting spree.[20]
In June 2007, Kinkel sought a new trial, saying that his previous attorneys should have taken the case to trial and used theinsanity defense. Two psychiatrists testified that Kinkel exhibited signs of paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the shooting.[10] In August 2007, aMarion County judge denied him a new trial. Kinkel appealed, arguing among other things that he had had ineffective assistance of counsel during the trial proceedings. In January 2011, theOregon Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court judgment, denying his motion for a new trial.[26] Kinkel has appealed his sentence in both federal and state courts. In federal court he claimed his guilty plea should not have been accepted without a prior mental health evaluation. In state court, Kinkel challenged the validity of the virtual life sentence he was given, citingMiller v. Alabama.[27][28]
He continues to seek parole, although it is considered unlikely that he will ever be released. "There is still a long memory and a lot of victims", former congressman DeFazio toldThe New Yorker in 2023. "I mean, that guy should never see the light of day."[4]
Kinkel is incarcerated at theOregon State Correctional Institution inSalem. He received hisGED while serving a portion of his ‘life sentence’ atMacLaren Youth Correctional Facility inWoodburn. On June 11, 2007, Kinkel, nearing his 25th birthday (the maximum age to be held as a juvenile in Oregon), was transferred from theOregon Youth Authority, MacLaren Correctional Facility, to the Oregon State Correctional Institution,[29] where he currently resides, withOregon Department of Corrections SID number 12975669.[30]
Anthony W. Case was shot four times by Kinkel as he took shelter underneath a table. The injuries were severe enough that he was unable to walk for an extended period afterwards and did not return to school until the next year. At Kinkel's sentencing, he said the pain was still enough that he could not walk far without shoes; he still has a slight limp. Nerve damage in his legs led to him to give up hopes of playing baseball in college. Instead, he devoted himself to science, earning a bachelor's degree in physics from theUniversity of Oregon in nearbyEugene, and a Ph.D. in astronomy fromBoston University. He worked at theHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics where he has helped develop theParker Solar Probe, theLunar Reconnaissance Orbiter andHelioSwarm. Case toldThe New Yorker that without the injuries, he might not have pursued his scientific studies as seriously: "If I had been pushing more toward baseball, there's no way I could have been studying as much".[4][31]
Kinkel was formally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and takes antipsychotic medication for it daily. He works as an electrician and takes college classes in prison. Kinkel continues to reflect on, and try to understand, his actions. "How could I have gotten to this point at fifteen that all these things came together—where my humanity collapsed, and I did this horrific thing to people I loved and to people I didn't know?" he asked in 2023.[4]
The role his mental health and the treatment it received prior to the shooting has complicated retrospective views of it. "There’s no way his behavior was a choice", says his sister, who elaborates that she has never felt angry enough to need to forgive him since he was the only family member she had left after he killed their parents. Being his sister has, she says, complicated some of her romantic relationships when partners found out. Case, who survived four shots Kinkel took at him, resists the desire to explain him but agrees that better mental-health treatment might have averted the shootings. If it came down to his opinion as to whether Kinkel should be released, he allowed, it would not be an easy decision but "it wouldn't be a hardno".[4]
