Perpetrator and Motives
In the year prior to the shooting, the Loukaitis family was facing some dysfunctional issues. Loukaitis' parents separated in 1995, after his mother discovered her husband was having an affair. She filed for divorce against her husband in January 1996. His mother, Jo Ann Phillips, was a domineering woman who became increasingly distant and began speaking of suicide. She would frequently imply that her son Barry would also have to kill himself, and that the date of the double-suicide would be on Valentine's Day of 1996. Barry convinced his mother out of doing so, by having her write down her feelings.
Loukaitis suffered from hyperactivity, and was taking Ritalin at the time of the shooting. He also suffered from clinical depression, a mental illness present in the last three generations of the Loukaitis family, and last four generations of the Phillips family.
Loukaitis claimed that he only intended on killing Manuel Vela, and that the other deaths were accidental.
Read more about this topic: Frontier Middle School Shooting
Famous quotes containing the words perpetrator and/or motives:
“But ice-crunching and loud gum-chewing, together with drumming on tables, and whistling the same tune seventy times in succession, because they indicate an indifference on the part of the perpetrator to the rest of the world in general, are not only registered on the delicate surfaces of the brain but eat little holes in it until it finally collapses or blows up.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
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—Ashley Montagu (b. 1905)