Capitol Hill Massacre - Perpetrator

Perpetrator

Kyle Aaron Huff (September 22, 1977 – March 25, 2006) was the shooter in the morning massacre. Huff's motive remains unknown.

Huff claimed to have attended The Art Institute of Seattle and North Seattle Community College, although neither institution has records of him attending.

He had previously been arrested in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, for destroying a public arts project and was charged with a felony. (He shot up a statue of a moose that was part of an installation called "Moose on the Loose.") He was described by residents there as a well-liked person with a minor history of delinquency. He moved to Seattle with his twin brother about five years before the shooting. He had little contact with police in Seattle, but was involved in a brawl at the Lobo Saloon in 2004.

The weapons used were purchased legally at sporting goods stores in Kalispell, Montana. They were seized by the police in Whitefish after he pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor mischief charge in the moose incident. They were returned after he paid restitution and a fine. The original felony charge for destroying the art would have prohibited him from legally owning firearms.

Huff was not well known in Seattle's rave scene. Very few people in the scene knew him or interacted with him. On February 1, 2006, someone with the email address kylehuff23@hotmail.com asked on an internet message board run by local raver Groovinkim when the next rave was, because he'd never been to one.

A possible window into the killer's motives appeared nearly a month after the event. An apartment manager of a complex about a mile from Huff's residence called police about a possible bomb he found while inspecting dumpsters, although that bomb turned out to be just modeling clay and wires. In the investigation afterwards, police found a handwritten note in the dumpster apparently written by Huff. On June 6, the police released the letter, not yet authenticated, to the media. A week later, the Washington State Patrol's State Crime Lab concluded that it was "highly probable" that the letter was authentic. Arguments in favor of authenticity included the fact that the letter was written on stationery from the apartment complex where the Huff brothers lived, and matched several known samples of the killer's writing, according to crime lab experts. The Stranger earlier claimed that the handwriting on the letter appears the same as samples from a job application of Huff's that they had obtained.

The letter, dated two days before the killings, was quite specific in expressing the writer's anger at young ravers for their provocative lifestyle, particularly their sexual freedom, and said that the things they did and said were too disturbing for the writer to live with. It ended with the quote "Now, kids, Now", reminiscent of the letters "NOW" that Huff spray painted during the massacre.

In July 2006, an investigative panel released its findings to the public. In attempting to explain Huff's motivations, the panel suggested that a Nirvana song called "I Want to Know Now", with a chorus refrain of "now, now, now, now" influenced Huff's spray painted message.