True Crime With Caledonian Kitty

(Continued from part two) 

He left some homemade bombs around the house and left a note on the coffee table which read ''I just got two felonies on my head, my parents can't take that. It would destroy them. The embarrassment would be too much for them. They couldn't live with themselves. My head just doesn't work right. God damn these voices inside my head. I have to kill people. I have no other choice''.

As morning approached (May 21st 1998), he dressed for school. He loaded up the Glock pistol, filled a gym bag with ammunition, taped two bullets to his chest and a knife around his ankle.

 He put on a long stone coloured trench coat and wore a hat with the logo 'NIN' which was from one of his favourite bands 'Nine Inch Nails'.

Kip was 15 years old. He took his gym bag and got into his parents car and drove to Thurston High School.

He arrived at the school at 7:45am and parked the car about two blocks from the school and jogged to the campus. He then entered the patio area where he fired two shots, one which killed student Ben Walker and wounded another student. He then went to the cafeteria where he knew where most of the kids would be as they'd go there every morning before class. Whilst in the cafeteria he fired the last remaining 48 rounds from his rifle, wounding 24 students and killing 17 year old Mikael Nickolauson.

When Kip's gun ran out of ammunition a group of seven students led by Jacob Ryker pounced on Kip and got him to the ground, during the scuffle, Kip reached for his Glock which was attached to his belt and fired again once more before the students wrestled the gun from him. Jacob was wounded by the shot from this gun but continued to restrain Kip with the other students till the police arrived and arrested Kip.

[Jacob Ryker was later awarded the 'Boyscout Of America' Honor medal with crossed arms for his bravery.]

Kip fired a total of 50 rounds, 37 of which struck students and killed two. The students who were wounded that day made a full recovery of their injuries.

Whilst in police custody, Kip grabbed the knife that he had taped to his ankle and pounced on a police officer shouting ''Just kill me, shoot me''. The police officer subdued him with pepper spray.

Kip told police officers that he wanted to commit suicide after killing his parents but couldn't bring himself to do it.

Whilst Kip was being questioned by the police their colleagues travelled to the Kinkel residence and found the bodies of Bill and Faith Kinkel as Kip had left them with a sheet covering each of their bodies, the music was still playing and there was homemade bombs and ammunition scattered around the house. They also found Kip's note laying on the coffee table.

Reporters were everywhere and people who went to school with Kip gave interviews describing him as 'strange and morbid'. They said that he would tell the class how to make bombs and said that he wanted to join the army so that he would know what it was like to kill people.

Whilst Kip was in custody being questioned by police officers he was emotional and talked about 'voices' inside his head. The recording is quite harrowing but you can listen to it: here

On the 24th September 1999 (three days before Jury selection was set to take place) Kip Kinkel pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder, forgoing the possibility of being acquitted by reason of insanity.

In November of 1999, Kip was sentenced to 111 years in prison without the possibility of parole. At the sentencing he apologised to the court for everything that he had done.

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(Continued from Part One) 

After much persuading, Bill and Faith gave in and bought Kip a Glock pistol. Bill thought it would be ok as long as he laid down some ground rules to Kip, such as: he can only use the gun whilst Bill is present, the gun would also be locked up and Bill would have the key. Faith wasn't so sure about the gun but Bill said it would be ok as he would keep an eye on Kip and he would enrol him in gun safety courses. 

Before giving in and buying Kip the gun, Bill asked a few friends for advice and they told him that Kip would end up either stealing a gun or finding a way to buy one at some point so it was best to do it this way. Bill thought that Kip would calm down with his obsession with guns if he had the Glock. 

[Later on when the Psychiatrist was questioned about his discussion with Kip about guns he said that he would never recommend a gun to a patient such as Kip]

After 9 sessions with the Psychiatrist, Kip seemed to be so much better and Faith spoke excitedly on the phone to Kip's sister Kristen about all of the progress that he had made. The decision was made to end Kip's therapy and after being on Prozac for three months, Kip wanted to stop taking the tablets, he said that he felt so much better and his parents agreed that he was doing really well so they said that he could stop the medication. 

Kip started attending 'Thurston High School' where his father had retired as a popular Spanish teacher. Kip really wanted to excel in sports and put himself forward for the football team, he was a lot smaller and skinnier than the other guys and struggled. It soon became apparent that Kip wasn't cut out to be a footballer. He saw this as another failure and constantly compared himself to other people.

He would write random notes in his bedroom such as ''I want to be something I can never be'', ''I'm always alone'' and ''I hate what I've become''. 

Bill decided to buy Kip another gun. It's not clear whether Kip had begged him for another gun or that Bill wanted to show Kip that he trusted him after he saw the improvement in Kip after he bought him the Glock pistol. 

It was during this time that Kip was having problems with a girl that he'd been dating. According to friends, the girl been playing mind games with him and he never really knew where he stood. He often felt frustrated with the situation. The relationship came to an end and this plunged Kip into depression. 

One day in English class, Kip's teacher put on the movie 'Romeo and Juliet' which was a remake of the famous love story and starred Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes. Kip became obsessed with the film (especially as guns were heavily featured in the movie) and the soundtrack.

By the end of freshman year, Kip became interested in school shootings. There had been a few shootings that had happened the year before and he would make comments to friends about what he would have done and where he thought the shooters had gone wrong. He mentioned to friends that he thought his father was going to take away the guns he had bought him and he was fed up of Bill having so much control, he wanted a gun of his own that he could keep on him whenever he wanted to use it.

Kip arranged to buy a stolen gun from a friend and he hid it in his school locker. Someone tipped off the police (it's unknown whether Kip bragged about having the gun in his locker and was overheard or a friend had spoken up) and they came to the school. When the police searched the locker they found the gun was fully loaded. Kip was arrested and Bill was contacted.

The police took Kip straight to the police department and Bill had to pick him up from there. It's unknown what was going through Bill's mind at this moment but from friends who knew him, they said that he would've been furious, he was already at his wits end and had run out of options with Kip. Being the proud man that he was, he would've felt embarrassed having to constantly sort out the mess that Kip had created and now having to collect him from the police station. It must have been a very tense car ride home.

Kip's mother was out of the house and was unaware of what was going on. Bill's friends say that he would have laid down the law and confiscated the guns, they also said that Bill had opened up to a few friends previously saying that he was 'terrified' and was running out of options on how to help his son. According to the police, there was an argument between Kip and Bill. Kip claims that Bill said some hurtful things to him, including that he would be sent to military school if he didn't improve his behaviour.

After the argument, Kip went upstairs (the length of time is unknown) but soon returned downstairs and went into the kitchen where his father was sat at the kitchen counter with his back to him drinking a cup of coffee, without a word, Kip pointed a gun at his father's head and fired.

Around 6:30pm, Faith returned home. Kip told the police that as she was walking up the stairs, Kip said to her ''I love you mom'' then fired two shots which struck her head, a third above her left eye, another into her left cheek, another into the centre of his mother's forehead and one into her heart. 

Kip then moved his father's body into a bathroom which he covered with a bed sheet. He also covered his mother's body with a bed sheet. 

Kip had 'Liebestod' on continuous play (the final dramatic aria from Wagner's opera. The recording was also featured in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 movie version of Romeo and Juliet). 

Continued in part three....

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I remember as a teenager sitting up late one night and watching a documentary about a school shooting that took place in America. The school shooting had taken place a year before the horrific events at Columbine High School and the documentary focused on the boy who had carried out the shootings.

If you hadn't guessed it from the picture above, I am talking about Kipland Kinkel and the terrible events that had happened both before and during the Thurston High School Shooting of which he was responsible. 

There's a lot of teenagers out there today who are going through hell at school and sometimes they become intrigued by events like Columbine and other high school shootings. I will be talking about Columbine in a future post to correct some of the myths surrounding what happened and what was reported in the press. 

Because of Columbine, the shooting at Thurston High School was put together on the list with the other high school shootings and wasn't really spoken about. There seemed to be a lot of focus on Columbine as it was the deadliest high school shooting at that time in America. I don't want to focus too much about Columbine in this post as I want to save that for the future post that I'll be sharing soon. 

This is going to be a long post and will be shared in three parts so grab a drink, a snack and get comfortable and we'll get right to it....

Kipland Philip Kinkel (nicknamed 'Kip' for short) was born on the 30th of August in 1982 to parents Bill and Faith, both parents were Spanish teachers and his father was quite a popular teacher at Thurston High School where Kip would later be a student. He also had an older sister who he was very close with. 

During Kip's early years he struggled quite a lot academically and it soon became apparent that he had Dyslexia. Despite this, Kip tried whatever he could to do better at school, often spending hours studying and trying to learn but sadly the results would always be the same. His older sister seemed to take after his parents as she was also academically gifted and excelled in gymnastics. Kip tried sports and struggled with that too.

Kip's parents didn't help matters as they were often quite critical of Kip and more warm towards his older sister. In family video's his father Bill can often be heard in the background filming Kip's sister doing her gymnastics routines and praising her, when Kip tried to copy his sister and would fall over, his father would make comments such as ''Kip needs more work''. Kip felt in the shadow of his older sister and felt the pressure not to disappoint his parents. 

For Kip, growing up  with a learning disability in an academically gifted family was a struggle (back then, people didn't discuss dyslexia out in the open like they do now and some teachers were not trained in how to recognise the signs). No matter what he tried to do, it never seemed to work. His sister said that his parents would often get on his back about the least little thing that he did wrong. With Kip's sister around, she would often be a source of comfort for him, she also acted as a mediator between Kip and their parents. She commented that whenever Bill and Faith would complain about something Kip had done, she would try to reason with them and calm the situation down. 

When Kip's sister went away to college, the relationship between Kip and his parents became more strained. 

In middle school Kip struggled with bullies, he would talk about being stood at the water fountain trying to get a drink and someone would often come up behind him and push his face into the water. He tried his best to avoid the bullies and begged his parents to enrol him in a karate class so that he could defend himself. His parents took a while to agree to this as they thought that Karate was too violent (they were against all kinds of violence and even didn't like watching violent movies in the house). 

Bill and Faith eventually gave in, thinking it would help build Kip's confidence and they knew how he had struggled with other things, they were hoping that he would find something that he was good at so that he would start to feel better about himself. They started to think that karate would be a good hobby for him. 

Bill and Faith thought that with the karate class, things would take a more positive turn but Kip started to hang around with the rebellious kids at school. There was a gang of boys who rode the school bus everyday and they were seen as the outcasts because they smoked, drank, dressed like skaters, some had often been suspended from school or been in juvenile hall. 

Things soon began to get out of hand when Kip and his new friends started hanging out at the local shopping mall causing mayhem and shoplifting. Kip was one of the boys who was eventually caught stealing and his parents were informed of what had been going on.

Kip's parents were at their wits end and were trying to come up with ways to keep Kip out of trouble and possibly keep him away from the bad boys and be more at home where they could keep a bit of an eye on him. They came up with the idea that he could spend his spare time on the computer upstairs. 

Kip was happy to do this and he was left for hours on end, alone in the room to search online anything that he wanted. His parents didn't check on him, in their view, he was in the house safe and sound and didn't feel the need to check on him. 

Whilst surfing the web, Kip would listen to music such as his favourite band 'Nine Inch Nails' and he started to become obsessed with the song 'The Reflecting God' by Marilyn Manson. Kip printed the lyrics of the song and hung them up in his room. 

[Later on, during the police search of Kip's computer, they found that he had been looking at porn sites, guides on how to make explosives and guns. He also used the computer to order books on explosives and had bomb making materials sent to his school in which he was later caught.]

When his parents were called to the school yet again, Kip made excuses that he was researching things like explosives and how to make bombs because he was looking into becoming a police officer in the future. His parents didn't really believe this story but they didn't know how to respond to it and didn't want to make matters worse.

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If you enjoy my content or I have helped promote/share your blog and you would like to say thanks, you can donate a coffee to me here!! & I will give you a special shoutout on twitter (I can also include your social media links if you like. Don't forget to leave me your twitter handle) 

For all enquiries and collaborations, please get in touch at: caledoniankblog@yahoo.co.uk