Marysville Shooting Update 2014: Jaylen Fryberg Invited Victims To Lunch: Report
Washington state high school gunman Jaylen Fryberg invited his victims to lunch via text message, the Associated Press reported Monday. Fryberg, a popular student at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, shot five people at the table and then turned the gun on himself to commit suicide, Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said at a news conference.
"The question everybody wants is, 'Why?'" Trenary said, according to the AP. "I don't know that the 'why' is something we can provide."
Investigators are reportedly drudging through text messages, phone and social media records as part of an investigation that could take months.
A memorial was held outside the school Monday to remember the victims. Mourners hugged each other at 10:39 a.m., the moment the gun allegedly went off.
Schools shooters have generally become stereotyped as outsiders who are bullied before one day unleashing their wrath on peers. But Fryberg breaks that mold. He was a football player who was named a prince on the school's homecoming court one week before the killings. He seemed happy although he was also upset about a girl, friends said.
On Twitter, according to the AP, he wrote vague, anguished posts like, "It won't last ... It'll never last" and "I should have listened. ... You were right ... The whole time you were right."
Fryberg killed Zoe R. Galasso, 14, and Gia Soriano, 14. Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, is in critical condition. Two of Fryberg's cousins, Nate Hatch, 14, and Andrew Fryberg, 15, also were shot.
"We are devastated by this senseless tragedy," Soriano’s family said in a statement, read at a news conference by Providence Regional Medical Center's Dr. Joanne Roberts. "Gia is our beautiful daughter, and words cannot express how much we will miss her.”
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