Shooting motive remains unknown

By Rachel Dissell

Plain Dealer Reporter

For several days, people have cast T.J. Lane as a loner.

But by Tuesday afternoon, the attention of his school, his community and even the world had been turned on the 17-year-old, accused of opening fire in the cafeteria of Chardon High School and killing three students.

Lane appeared in Geauga County Juvenile Court, surrounded by law enforcement, three stunned-looking family members and a crowd of media trying to make sense of the tragedy.

Lane, in a tan collared shirt and belted pants, stared at a table, blinking often, as county Prosecutor David Joyce told a judge the teen admitted bringing a knife and a .22-caliber handgun into the school’s cafeteria Monday morning and firing off 10 rounds at students.

Five were hit. Three of them — Daniel Parmertor, 16, Russell King Jr., 17, and Demetrius Hewlin, 16 — have died.

Another, Joy Rickers, 18, was released from the hospital Tuesday. Nickolas Walczak, 17, remained in serious condition at Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights.

The community had been grasping for a motive since Lane surrendered to authorities shortly after the shooting, about a mile from the school.

On Tuesday, they didn’t get one.

Since the shootings, some had speculated that Lane was bullied. Others said a former friend stole his girlfriend. There was a rumor about a beef over drugs.

But Joyce said Lane simply “was not well.”

“This was an aberration,” Joyce said at press conference after Lane’s appearance in county juvenile court.

While in court, Joyce said Lane told authorities that he did not pick targets.

“He chose them randomly,” he said.

But some of the students who were shot had known Lane, at least since middle school. Some rode a bus with him each day. Others were Facebook friends of his.

Witnesses said he was silent and expressionless before and during the shooting. One saw him in a bathroom before the shooting peering at himself in a mirror.

After Lane fled the school, he sat — alone — on the side of Woodin Road waiting for deputies to come get him. When they arrived, he stood calmly as a deputy clasped handcuffs over his wrists.

Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell ordered Lane held in detention until charges are filed. Lane’s lawyer, Robert Farinacci, did not object. Another court hearing is expected to take place within a week.

The judge also imposed a gag order, meaning that Farinacci and Joyce cannot talk with the media about the case.

With Lane in court were two aunts and his grandfather, Jack Nolan, 81, who is his legal guardian. Nolan’s home on Wilson Mills Road was searched by the FBI on Monday. Neighbors told WEWS Channel 5 that Lane had lived with the Nolans since he was young and that several other children lived there as well.

All three asked not to be photographed by the media, and Grendell granted that request and said Lane’s face also could not be photographed in court.

In addition, Grendell refused to release juvenile- court and family-court records concerning Lane and his family, at least until a hearing today. Farinacci said he didn’t want them released.

Little still is known about Lane beyond where he went to school and what he put out there for the world to see on the Internet.

Lane’s now-deleted Facebook page was peppered with sarcastic and sometimes angry missives. In some pictures posted there, he looked like a lost little boy, and in others, he seemed to be pushing an imposing image.