The troubled Ohio 17-year-old who pumped 10 shots from his .22 caliber into a cafeteria table of high-school students wrote a bitter online warning weeks before — ending with “Die, all of you.”
Prosecutors revealed yesterday that T.J. Lane was angry at the world and did not even know the five students he shot at Chardon High school, three of them fatally.
“This was not about bullying,” Geauga County prosecutor David Joyce told reporters, disputing reports that Lane had selected his targets to avenge past grievances.
Joyce said Lane confessed and “he said he did not know the students but chose them randomly.”
He offered no explanation for what triggered Lane’s Monday morning rampage. But the slim youth left clues in the bizarre, poetic rant on his Facebook page on Dec. 30, when he spoke of himself in the third person:
“In a quaint lonely town, sits a man with a frown. No job. No Family. No crown. His luck had run out. Lost and alone.”
Lane named no enemies, but wrote, “He was better than the rest, all those ones he detests, within their castles, so vain. Selfish and Conceited . . . Now! Feel death . . . Wriggle and writhe. Feel smaller beneath my might . . . Die, all of you.”
Other clues to the tragedy came from court records that described a family life from hell. While Lane was an infant both his father, Thomas Lane Jr., and mother, Sara Nolan, were each charged with domestic abuse against each other.
His father, who had several arrests for violent crimes against women, was later sent to prison for trying to suffocate another wife, the records showed.
There was no indication that either parent had recent contact with Lane. He was living with his grandparents.
The teen betrayed emotion only briefly during the 15-minute hearing, when his face twitched lightly as Joyce described the attack.
He spoke only when he answered, “Yes, sir, yes, I do,” after Judge Tim Grendell asked if he understood his rights. Lane sniffled and half-closed his eyes as he walked out of the room with sheriff’s deputies when the hearing ended.
Lane kept his troubles to himself, according to a friend, Haley Kovacik.
“I’ve asked him once or twice, but he never would go into detail. He just said he had family trouble, “Kovacik said.
BABY-FACED ‘KILLER’: Alleged gunman T.J. Lane leaves court yesterday. He is accused of murdering fellow students Daniel Parmentor, Russell King Jr. and Demetrius Hewlin. (Reuters)
BABY-FACED ‘KILLER’: Alleged gunman T.J. Lane leaves court yesterday. He is accused of murdering fellow students (from top) Daniel Parmentor, Demetrius Hewlin and Russell King Jr. (
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Lane’s lawyer, Robert Farinacci, said his client “pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends.”
Yesterday authorities identified the second fatal victim, Russell King, 17, and said another student, Demetrius Hewlin, had also died.