City of Belmont - Ruth Faulkner Public Library

School Slaughter At 8 a.m. on Wednesday, October 1, 1997, nerdy, overweight outcast Luke Woodham, 16, entered his Pearl, Mississippi high school to settle some scores. Armed with a .30-30 hunting rifle, he opened fire and then calmly walked out of the school door, leaving two teenage girls dead and another seven students seriously wounded. Police soon discovered that Woodham's 11-minute rampage had actually begun hours before at home, where they found his mother, Mary Anne, brutally beaten with a baseball bat and then stabbed to death. Evil Cult Luke Woodham may have been the assassin, but behind his horrifying act lay the shadowy hand of a twisted mastermind. Grant Boyette, 18, Bible student-turned-Hitler-lover and devil-worshipper, was a diabolical Pied Piper who used a fantasy role-playing game to program six high school students with hate, Satanism, and animal torture. "Murder Is Gutsy And Daring." Those were the chilling words of Luke Woodham, now serving three consecutive life sentences. The horror he unleashed serves as a disturbing reminder of today's shocking epidemic of high school shootings, and that the one place America's kids are supposed to be safe has become the most dangerous place of all. 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos!

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Child's PreyThe Rampage that Shocked the Nation