Adult helps teen plot school massacre with hit list, OH officials say. ‘Need them dead’
A 14-year-old conspired with an out-of-state contact to plan and execute a mass casualty event at an Ohio high school, officials say.
The teen was arrested Wednesday, Feb. 7, and was charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, police said.
The suspect had a list of Mariemont High School students and teachers to be killed, as well as a plan to acquire a gun from his home, according to Hamilton County Prosecutor Melissa Powers.
“We believe this was going to be carried out,” Powers said in a press conference.
Authorities were tipped off about the plan by another student at the Cincinnati school, Powers said. “We believe it was a tragedy that was averted because of the bravery of a student and a family doing the right thing,” she said.
Zach Swallen, the father of the teen who informed adults about the threat, referred to his son as his “hero” in an interview with WLWT.
“He told my son that if he told anybody that, he was going to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger and blow his brains out,” Swallen said. .
Mariemont police chief Richard Hines told WKRC he believes Swallen’s tip “probably saved a lot of lives.”
“Without the tip I think this would’ve been a really bad situation,” Hines said.
Text messages dating to January between the teen and his co-conspirator mention the use of gas and guns, as well as killing and kidnapping people.
“I need them dead really soon,” the teen said in a text message.
“I’d prefer to gas the place, erase the cameras, kill the people we need/want to, kidnap the attractive ones to (expletive) later,” another text said.
“Yeah, sounds like a plan,” the teen’s contact responded.
Officials say the teen’s out-of-state contact was an adult in their 20s, according to Cincinnati’s WCPO and WXIX. The adult’s identity has not been released.
Colorado’s KRDO13 reports that the Colorado Springs Police Department is involved in the investigation after the FBI approached them about a phone number with a 719 area code connected to the case.
Powers said she is asking for the case to be “bound over to the Court of Common Pleas for trial as an adult.”
If convicted as an adult, the 14-year-old would face “a maximum possible sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 35 years,” Powers said.
If tried in juvenile court, the teen would face a maximum possible sentence of commitment to a youth prison until the age of 21, according to Powers.
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