The teenager who killed two people at his St. Louis high school left a note complaining about being lonely, and not having friends and a girlfriend.
The late shooter was identified as Orlando Harris, 19, by the police on Tuesday, October 25, a day after he carried out the deadly shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School.
Before the confirmation by the police, his picture taken from the school’s yearbook had been widely circulated.
The 19-year-old, who gunned down a fellow student and gym teacher, wore a white hoodie and a black jacket in the photo published in the yearbook.
In a chilling note he left behind, he called his life a “perfect storm for a mass shooter.”
The note was left in Harris’ car before he stormed the high school with an AR-15-style rifle and more than 600 rounds of ammunition. Harris killed tenth-grader Alexandria Bell and 61-year-old physical education teacher Jean Kuczka before he was killed in a shootout with police.
In his note, Harris complained about not having friends, family or a girlfriend.
“I’ve never had a social life. I’ve been an isolated loner my entire life,” Harris wrote.
Harris reportedly screamed, “You’re all going to f—ing die!” and said he was “tired of this damn school” as he launched his deadly attack
Despite the warning signs, one of Harris’s teachers claimed he was a friendly and outgoing student.
Lauren Ogundipe, the school’s theater director and teacher of theatre arts, told the St. Louis Dispatch that Harris was a helpful and talkative teen passionate about the theatre department.
“He would laugh and joke with members of his graduating class,” Ogundipe said. “He would talk with different teachers, he would talk about his school life — he didn’t really talk about his home life. He would talk about girls he was interested in.”
“He was helpful. He showed himself as a helpful servant of the school. If something was needed, a skill he’d obtained in the arts, he showed himself as ready, willing and able to lend a hand,” Ogundipe added.
“If something needed to be moved physically … he would show up on his own without being asked.”
