Lakeview student arrested over threats contained in an e-mail

The e-mail was similar to ones from a Colorado
killer.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

CORTLAND — Police were concerned when the FBI forwarded an e-mail to them Thursday morning written by a Lakeview High School senior, in which he said: “... i need to kill i want to kill in the name of our unholy lord satan ...”

Their concern grew as they started to realize that the author included his real name and that his remarks were eerily similar to ones apparently written on the Internet on Sunday by a 24-year-old man the day he went on a shooting spree in Colorado aimed at Christians.

The Bazetta boy’s e-mail, written Wednesday afternoon to a leader of the Church of Satan in New York City, says ... “please let me kill in his name i live and [sic] ohio my grandfather was a lietuanent [sic] in police he has an entire arsenal of wepons [sic] i will kill both my grandparents and take all the wepons [sic] all the money and there [sic] car please employe [sic] me as an unholy warrior email i will kill at his comand [sic] with remorse”

The Church of Satan leader read the e-mail about 6 p.m. Wednesday and forwarded it to the FBI.

The FBI forwarded it to Niles and Cortland police the next morning after determining that the boy was from either Niles or Cortland — he had moved to a Cortland mailing address in Bazetta Township 18 months ago after moving from his mother’s house in Niles.

He was arrested about 1 p.m. Thursday and charged with a misdemeanor, inducing panic. He remains in custody of juvenile officials until at least Monday.

Cortland Police Chief Gary Mink and Bazetta Chief Chuck Sayers had an officer “shadow” the boy during school Thursday while officers talked to the boy’s family and checked into his background.

In an interview with police, the boy said the e-mail was “nothing but a joke,” Mink said. “I said, ‘What do you think is a joke? You threatened to kill your grandparents.’”

A person can say it’s just a joke when they talk about killing someone, Sayers said, but when they sign their name to it and send it over the Internet, authorities have to take it seriously.

“You hear about these things in other places. We want to make sure something terrible doesn’t happen here in our schools,” Sayers said, referring to killing sprees at Virginia Tech, Columbine High and elsewhere.

Colorado authorities say 24-year-old Matthew Murray wrote in e-mails the day he killed four two people at a missionary training school and in a church: “All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.” Murray also killed himself.

Sayers added that there was no indication the Bazetta boy ever threatened to kill anyone at Lakeview, but the statements in the e-mail were general enough to include the possibility of violence there.

The Bazetta boy’s grandparents and other family members told police the boy had not threatened to hurt them, but he had left his grandparents’ house for a day or two earlier this week after having an argument with them. He had just returned to the house the day he wrote the threatening e-mail, Mink said.

Police confirmed that the boy’s grandfather had firearms in the house, but they were locked up. Police also confirmed that the boy had already completed his basic training so that he could enter the Army as soon as he graduates from high school, something the boy mentioned in his e-mail.

The boy had been in some trouble in the Niles school district and recently received a Saturday detention for getting into a fight at Lakeview, but he had no criminal record, Mink said.

The leader of the satanic church in New York said his organization had no previous contact with the Bazetta boy before Wednesday’s e-mail, Mink said.

runyan@vindy.com