Killer in Oregon took own life, lawmen say

Grieving town remembers 9 victims

Charley Thompson and his wife, Rachel, place flowers at a memorial Saturday near the road leading to Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore.
Charley Thompson and his wife, Rachel, place flowers at a memorial Saturday near the road leading to Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore.

ROSEBURG, Ore. -- Christopher Harper-Mercer killed himself after he shot nine people to death and wounded nine others during an attack at Umpqua Community College, officials said Saturday.

Officials had originally said the gunman died during an exchange of gunfire with police.

Two days after the attack on the college, among the deadliest mass shootings at a school in two decades, Roseburg appeared more focused on mourning the nine killed and praying for the recovery of the wounded in the classroom rampage than on details about the shooter.

The shooter spared one student and gave the "lucky one" something to deliver to authorities, according to the mother of a student who witnessed the rampage.

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

Bonnie Schaan, the mother of Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, 16, said she was told by her 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, wounded in the attack, underwent surgery in which a kidney was removed.

Janet Willis said her granddaughter, Anastasia Boylan, was wounded in the attack Thursday 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.

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.

"This community will do quite well and pull together," Mayor Larry Rich said Saturday. "For our community, this is a time to grieve."

Harper-Mercer opened fire Thursday morning in his English class while heavily armed and wearing a flak jacket, reportedly asking students whether they were Christian before he shot them.

Those gathered for the Writing 115 class, as in most community colleges, were a mix of different ages and stages of life.

Families of the dead have asked for privacy, but offered statements about their loved ones.

Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59, and her 18-year-old daughter were both at the school during the violence. The daughter was unhurt but the mother died in the classroom.

"She was a very energetic, very kind, kind soul," her former husband, Eric, a vineyard manager, who remained close with Dietz, wrote on his Facebook page. "Kim was an exceptional woman."

The father of Lucero Alcaraz, 19, fought back tears and anger outside his Roseburg home as he talked about her.

"There is no sense in talking about it. It's in vain," Ezequiel Alcaraz said in Spanish to The Associated Press. "What's the point in showing our pain?"

Lucero's sister, Maria Leticia Alcaraz, posted on Facebook that her sister was missing, and then broke the news that she was dead.

"Never in a million years would I have imagined going through something like this. She was my best friend and my sister," she wrote. "I can't begin to describe how I feel. I'm full of anger, pain, sadness, regret that I didn't get the chance to see her or prevent this from happening."

College life was just beginning for Jason Johnson, who had started his first week at the school, his mother told NBC News on Friday.

Tonja Johnson Engel said her son had struggled with drug abuse, but decided to continue his education after completing a six-month rehabilitation program with the Salvation Army in Portland.

"The other day, he looked at me and hugged me and said, 'Mom, how long have you been waiting for one of your kids to go to college?' And I said, 'Oh, about 20 years,"' Engel said.

In a statement issued Friday at the news conference, the family of Quinn Glen Cooper, 18, of Roseburg, mourned Cooper as a "funny, sweet, compassionate and such a wonderful loving person."

"He always stood up for people," the statement said. Cooper was going to take his brown belt test in martial arts this week, and loved dancing and voice acting.

"Our lives are shattered beyond repair," his family said.

Law enforcement officials struggled with their words as they read the statements.

Lucas Eibel of Roseburg, 18, "was as an amazing soccer player," his family wrote, noting his academic achievements, including graduating from Roseburg High School with high academic marks, receiving a Ford Family Foundation scholarship, and receiving an Umpqua Community College scholars award.

The teacher of the class was Lawrence Levine, 67, of Glide. He was also a member of Steamboaters, a fly-fishing and conservation group. Dale Greenley, a fellow member of the group, told reporters that Levine was an avid fisherman who used to be a guide on the north Umpqua River.

"He was kind of quiet and laid back, he didn't say much," Greenley said. "But he was a good writer."

Sarena Dawn Moore, 44, of Myrtle Creek was a member of Grants Pass Seventh-day Adventist Church, which put a post on its Facebook page mourning her.

In a written statement read by officials, the family of Treven Taylor Anspach, 20, of Sutherlin said he was "one of the most positive young men, always looking for the best in life."

Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18, of Myrtle Creek was the great-granddaughter of the first cousin of U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. The senator was among a group of top officials who called on the community to pull together. He described the pain of learning that the shooting had touched so close to home. "Rebecka's beautiful spirit will be enormously missed," he said.

Harper-Mercer was enrolled in the class but officials have not disclosed a possible motive for the killings. In a statement released by authorities, his family said they were "shocked and deeply saddened" by the slayings and that their prayers went out to the families of those who died and were injured.

Oregon's top federal prosecutor said the shooter used a handgun when he opened fire on classmates and had stashed a rifle in another room but did not fire it.

Several years ago, Harper-Mercer moved to Winchester, Ore., from Torrance, Calif., with his mother, Laurel Harper, a nurse.

At an apartment complex where Harper-Mercer and his mother lived in Southern California, neighbors remembered him as a quiet, odd young man who rode a red bike.

The Army said Harper-Mercer flunked out of basic training in 2008.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael Muskal and Marisa Gerber of the Los Angeles Times; and by Gosia Wozniacka, Tami Abdollah, Jonathan J. Cooper, Rachel La Corte, Rebecca Boone, Rhonda Shafner and Adriana Mark of The Associated Press.

A Section on 10/04/2015

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