Pearl High School shooting
| Pearl High School shooting | |
|---|---|
| Location | Pearl, Mississippi, United States |
| Date | October 1, 1997 (UTC-6) |
|
Attack type
|
School shooting, spree killing, matricide |
| Weapons |
|
| Deaths | 2 (at the school) and perpetrator's mother (at home); 3 total |
|
Non-fatal injuries
|
7 |
| Perpetrator | Luke Woodham |
| Defender | Joel Myrick (Assistant Principal and U.S. Army Reserve Commander) armed with Colt 1911 .45 auto |
| Motive |
|
The Pearl High School shooting was a school shooting that took place on October 1, 1997, at Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi in Greater Jackson. The gunman, 16-year-old Luke Woodham (born February 5, 1981), killed two students and injured seven others at his high school. Before the shooting at Pearl High School began, Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned his mother to death in her home.
The incident began in the morning of October 1, 1997, when Luke Woodham fatally stabbed and bludgeoned his mother, Mary Ann Woodham, as she prepared for a morning jog. At his trial, Woodham claimed that he could not remember killing his mother. Mary Ann Woodham died 20 minutes later from blood loss.
Woodham then drove his mother's Toyota Tercel to Pearl High School. Wearing a trench coat to hide his rifle when he entered the school, Woodham fatally shot Lydia Kaye Dew and Christina Menefee, his former girlfriend, then went on to wound seven others.
The school's assistant principal, Joel Myrick, retrieved a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol from his truck and, spotting Woodham attempting to flee the parking lot after the shooting, shouted for him to stop. Realizing what Woodham was doing, another student used his own vehicle to block Woodham's path, at which point Woodham attempted to get around the obstruction by driving his mother's car onto a grass verge, only to end up getting stuck in the grass. Seizing his opportunity, Myrick ordered Woodham out of the car at gunpoint and detained him until police arrived at the scene.
Minutes before he started the shooting, Woodham had given the following message to his friend Justin Sledge:
I am not insane, I am angry. I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society, push us and we will push back. ... All throughout my life, I was ridiculed, always beaten, always hated. Can you, society, truly blame me for what I do? Yes, you will. ... It was not a cry for attention, it was not a cry for help. It was a scream in sheer agony saying that if you can't pry your eyes open, if I can't do it through pacifism, if I can't show you through the displaying of intelligence, then I will do it with a bullet.
During the subsequent investigation, Woodham's journal was examined by police. In it, he detailed how he and a friend had tortured his dog Sparkle to death, several months prior to the shooting:
I will never forget the howl she made. It sounded almost human. We laughed and hit her hard.
...
Wikipedia