Kipland (Kip) Kinkel

On May 21, 1998, Faith and Bill Kinkel were found dead. Both bodies were covered in sheets. Faith had five bullet wounds in the head and one in the chest, and Bill had one bullet wound in his head. That same day, the perpetrator was discovered after the couple's son, Kip, age 15, entered the cafeteria in Thurston High School, Springfield, Oregon, with 50 rounds of ammunition and opened fire. Twenty-five students were wounded and two were killed. On his way to the cafeteria, Kip saw his best friend and warned him to stay away from the area.

At the crime scene in the Kinkels' home, an investigator found a letter written by Kip just after he'd committed the murders of his parents. In the letter, he wrote, “I am a horrible son. I wish I had been aborted. I destroy everything I touch…my head just doesn't work right. God damn these voices inside my head.” The investigator also found a recently used cereal bowl, a newspaper that appeared to have been read by Kip, and a journal Kip had kept. Although Kip reported auditory hallucinations that instructed him to kill, there was evidence that he had attempted to clean the crime scene, sat down and had a bowl of cereal, and read the paper, all unusual acts for someone who had killed in a psychotic frenzy.

To the general public, Kip's family appeared to be loving and stable. His father and mother had both been high school Spanish teachers and were respected in the community. Kip's older sister, Kristen, who was attending the University of Hawaii when the murders were committed, reported an average childhood in which she and Kip were involved in various activities and had regular family dinners. However, she also indicated that Kip had a strained relationship with his father and that he had always struggled academically.

As researchers continued to search for what would cause a good child to commit murder, they discovered that Kip had been troubled since childhood. Friends reported that they had quit playing with Kip after elementary school because he continually talked about violence and torture. He had even acted on some of his violent thoughts by torturing animals. The boy had attended counseling for his anger and according to his psychologist had admitted to setting off explosives to calm himself. Kip was also taking an antidepressant, which appeared to help with his depression. Other reports indicate that even the family's housekeeper was frightened by the boy, and 8 months before the murders, she had stopped working for the Kinkels for that reason. However, despite Kip's apparent anger and constant talk of destruction, his father had bought him a 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol. There were other signs of emotional disturbance as well, such as the explosives he had hidden under the front porch. In an interview with a psychologist after the murders, Kip said that he had hidden them out of fear that the Chinese were going to invade America.

[Page 274]Although Kip Kinkel reported hearing voices the day of his rampage, he did not pursue his initial insanity plea. Instead, to avoid a jury trial, he pleaded guilty to the attempted murders of 25 people and to the murders of two students and his parents. Kip's attorneys believed that a judge would be less swayed by emotions in the case and more likely to be fair and lenient than a jury. In November 1999, Kip Kinkel was sentenced to over 111 years in prison without possibility of parole.

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