Shooter spared one student to deliver message

Associated Press

ROSEBURG, Ore.

The 26-year-old killer who gunned down classmates inside an Oregon college spared a student and gave the “lucky one” something to deliver to authorities, according to the mother of a student who witnessed the rampage.

Shooter Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer later killed himself as officers arrived, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said Saturday.

Authorities have not disclosed whether they have an envelope or package from Harper-Mercer. However, a law-enforcement official said Saturday a manifesto of several pages had been recovered.

Bonnie Schaan, the mother of 16-year-old Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, said she was told by her 16-year-old daughter that the gunman gave someone an envelope and told him to go to a corner of the classroom.

Harper-Mercer said the person “was going to be the lucky one,” Schaan told reporters outside a hospital where her daughter had her kidney removed after being shot.

Janet Willis said her granddaughter, Anastasia Boylan, was wounded in the Thursday attack and pretended to be dead as Harper-Mercer kept firing, killing eight students and a teacher.

Willis said she visited her 18-year-old granddaughter in a hospital in Eugene, where the sobbing Boylan told her: “Grandma, he killed my teacher! ... I saw it!”

Boylan also said the shooter told one student in the writing class to stand in a corner, handed him a package and told him to deliver it to authorities, Willis said.

The law-enforcement official who disclosed the existence of the manifesto did not reveal its contents but described it as an effort to leave a message for law enforcement.

The official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to disclose information and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official said the document was left at the scene of the shooting but wouldn’t specify how authorities obtained it.

Boylan, a freshman at Umpqua Community College, also told her grandmother the gunman asked students about their faith.

“If they said they were Christian, he shot them in the head,” Willis said, citing the account given by her granddaughter.

However, conflicting reports emerged about Harper-Mercer’s words as he shot his victims.

Stephanie Salas, the mother of Rand McGowan, another student who survived, said she was told by her son that the shooter asked victims whether they were religious but did not specifically target Christians.

Her son said the shooter had people stand up before asking, “Do you have a God? Are you Christian? Do you have a religion?SDRq