ROSEBURG, Ore. — As a 26-year-old killer gunned down victims inside a college classroom, he spared one student and gave him a package to deliver to authorities, according to the grandmother of a student who witnessed the deadly rampage in Oregon.
The grandmother, Janet Willis, said her granddaughter Anastasia Boylan was wounded in the Thursday attack and pretended to be dead as Christopher Sean 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! 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 recalled. So far, authorities have not said anything about such a package.
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 Friday night, 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?' It was more so saying, 'you're going to be meeting your maker. This won't hurt very long.' Then he would shoot him," Sales told The Associated Press.
Law enforcement officials have not given details about what happened in the classroom.
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