Girls charged with conspiring to kill classmates + Oprah Winfrey

oRlyYaRly

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/26/school.conspiracy.ap/index.html

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) -- Six girls at a rural high school were charged with homicide conspiracy after their principal found a list of 300 names and officials discovered online postings suggesting they kill people, authorities said Thursday.

School officials said the list, discovered in a classroom trash can, mostly named students and faculty members but also included Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey and the Energizer Bunny.

Sequatchie County High School Principal Tommy Layne said that he initially considered it a joke, but that authorities then found the ninth-graders' online MySpace pages and postings that included the word "kill."

"In general terms, it was like, 'Let's kill these people,' " Dunlap Police Chief Clint Huth said. He declined to provide the specific wording on the posting, which has been removed.

"I am not saying we thwarted a shooting incident or an act of violence," Huth said. "On the other hand, had this gone unchecked, down the road it could have grown into something a whole lot more serious than a list of names."

There was no evidence that the girls had weapons or that an attack had been imminent, Huth said.

The girls, ages 14 and 15, were charged with conspiracy to commit criminal homicide late Wednesday and taken to a juvenile facility. A juvenile court detention hearing was set Friday in Dunlap, about 40 miles northwest of Chattanooga.

Layne said he learned about the list Tuesday when a "young man came in with his grandmother and said his name was on the list."

No club or group was involved, said Layne, who described the girls as friends. The school has more than 600 students.

Sophomore Lakyn Ledford stayed home Thursday after learning that student-athletes were on the list.

"I was very scared. My friends were scared. That's a scary thing. It can really happen," she told WTVC-TV.

OTT reaction or what?

DMC

Love the last quote... worthy of another look...

"I was very scared. My friends were scared. That's a scary thing. It can really happen"

Yes it surely can. People wishing death on other people on the internet.
As teenagers, I'm sure we all wished ill health or worse to others.

Zapho

Waaaaaaaaay OTT in fairness. Will it come to the point that if you say 'kill' in conversation, you'll get a prison sentence?

DarkJager

"Energizer Bunny"

They are definitely crackheads....

TheNog

Would it not be better to find out why these girls were doing this and help them with any problems they are having as opposed to sending them to a detention centre and bringing them to court?

Really OTT

Judt

On the one hand, they're teenagers, they're streamlined for "hating" people. On the other hand, how many school shootings have there been in the US in the past 10 - 15 years? What's OTT depends on where you live - in Ireland it's a "so what..." In a country where, for right or wrong, these teenagers can use their brains to easily get their hands on firearms, it might not be such a laughing matter.

If this were reported at the other end - "High School Girls Massacre Classmates Despite Obvious Warnings" - what would we be saying?

armchairninja

i for some reason think that it would cease to be a serious matter once you get to the "energizer bunny", how could it be taken seriously, again i think its just america over-reacting!:rolleyes:

Bottle_of_Smoke

Excuse me I'm off to delete anything I ever posted on the internet.

This is the craziest reaction I've ever heard of . . . ENERGIZER BUNNY!