Thurston High School shooting

Faith and William concealed this from psychologists; investigators hired by Kip's lawyers uncovered it, including one uncle who had stabbed a state trooper after a traffic stop in the late 1940s, believing the man had killed his brother during the war.

According to all accounts, Kinkel's parents were loving and supportive.

His older sister Kristin was a gifted student.

The family spent a sabbatical year in Spain when Kip was six, where he attended a Spanish-speaking kindergarten.

Kip reportedly attended in an "unnormal" way, and his family said that he struggled with the curriculum.

When he returned to Oregon, he attended elementary school in the small community of Walterville, about 5 miles (8 km) east of Springfield.

His teachers considered him immature and lacking physical and emotional development.

Based on the recommendation of his teachers, Kip's parents had him repeat the first grade.

During that year, he was diagnosed with dyslexia, which became worse, and placed in extensive special education classes by the beginning of second grade.

Kip had an interest in firearms and explosives from an early age that grew in puberty; he began making bombs, mostly gasoline-based, and detonating them in a nearby quarry to assuage his anger.

William initially wanted to discourage his son from violence, but later enrolled Kip in gun safety courses, buying him a 9mm Glock handgun and eventually a .22 caliber rifle at the age of 15.

He also passed down a .22 single-shot rifle he had received at age 12 to his son.

Faith initially disapproved of the purchases but relented when his psychologist "gave her emotional permission to say yes."

Kip and William used the guns for target shooting near their home.

Classmates at Thurston described Kinkel as strange and morbid.

Others characterized him as psychotic or schizoid, enjoying the music of rock bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, and Marilyn Manson.

He constantly talked about committing acts of violence, telling friends that he wanted to join the U.S. Army after graduation to find out what it was like to kill someone.

When asked about a family trip to Disneyland, he commented that he wanted to "punch Mickey Mouse in the nose."

He once gave a "how-to" speech in bomb-making to his speech class and set off "stink bombs" in the lockers of classmates.

Kipland Phillip Kinkel (born August 30, 1982) known as "Kip", is the second child of William and Faith Kinkel (née Zuranski) His parents were both Spanish teachers; Faith taught Spanish at Springfield High School, and William had taught at Thurston High School and Lane Community College; William had retired three years before the shooting while Faith was still working.

There was a history of serious mental illnesses in both sides of the family.

Kinkel studied William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet in his English class and related with the protagonists and became enamored with the 1996 modernized film adaptation, which featured heavy use of firearms.

Kip's parents enrolled him in anger management and had him evaluated by a psychologist, Jeffrey Hicks.

Shortly before his death, William confided to a friend that he was "terrified" and had run out of options to help his son.

Kinkel saw the psychologist over a period of six months.

On May 21, 1998, 15-year-old freshman student Kipland Kinkel opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the cafeteria of Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, United States, killing two of his classmates and wounding 25 others.

He had killed his parents at the family home the previous day, following his suspension pending an expulsion hearing after he admitted to school officials that he was keeping a stolen handgun in his locker.

Fellow students subdued him, leading to his arrest.

He later characterized his actions as an attempt to get others to kill him, since he wanted to take his own life after killing his parents but could not bring himself to.

During the year before the shooting, Kinkel's increasingly aberrant behavior and fascination with weapons and death had led his parents to take him to a psychologist, who diagnosed major depressive disorder.

After he appeared to respond to Prozac, his treatment was discontinued and the prescription expired.

But Kinkel's parents had not disclosed histories of mental illness in their families, and Kinkel himself had not told anyone about having heard voices urging him to violence since he was 12, out of fear of being ostracized or institutionalized.

Since the shootings he has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and takes antipsychotic medication; his sister and one of the victims believe that better awareness of mental health issues might have averted the shooting.

Kinkel pled guilty to murder and attempted murder.

He was sentenced to 111 years in prison without the possibility of parole; a sentence upheld on appeal.

He is currently incarcerated at the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem.

The shooting made national news, as the latest in a series of school shootings over the previous year.

Kinkel's was seen as more egregious than the earlier ones before since he had gone into a crowded internal space and indiscriminately opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle.

President Bill Clinton spoke at the high school a month later about the issue.

A memorial outside the school memorializes the two students killed.