Michael Carneal, convicted in 1997 for killing three classmates and injuring five in one of the first high profile school shootings in the U.S., in Kentucky, was denied parole on Sept. 26. Carneal will spend the rest of his life in prison.
The final decision was determined by the Kentucky Parole Board in compliance with Kentucky law and in consideration of both public safety and criminal reintegration. As the hearing was held in closed session, the board is prohibited by law from publicly discussing the ruling.
On Dec. 1, 1997, Carneal was a 14-year-old freshman at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky. That day, he brought a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol to school – one he stole from a neighbor’s home. He also carried a shotgun and a rifle, both wrapped in blankets, but did not use them in the shooting.
Carneal would go on to open fire on a group of students participating in a before-school prayer circle. The shooting claimed the lives of Nicole Hadley, 14, Jessica James, 17, and Kayce Steger, 15. Five more students were injured in the attack, including Kelly Hard Alsip, Hollan Holm, Craig Keene, Shelly Schaberg, Missy Jenkins Smith. The event left Smith paralyzed from the chest down.
“He sentenced me to life in a wheelchair without the possibility of parole,” Smith told the Courier Journal regarding the hearing. “He is doing well behind bars and he should stay there. Why mess with something that isn’t broken?”
The parole board reached their decision unanimously, according to a live tweet from Michael Berk of LEX18. Prior to the final hearing, a two-person panel was conducted with Carneal by board members Larry Brock and Ladeidra Jones. Jones told the Courier Journal that, while Carneal had a clean record from Kentucky State Reformatory for nine years prior to the hearing, the institution’s mental health officials said he was still experiencing paranoid thoughts.
During the preliminary panel, Carneal told Brock and Jones that he was still hearing voices in his head, as he had when he carried out the shooting. He told them that they are less violent now, but often tell him to harm or kill himself. “Like to jump down the stairs,” Carneal told the panel.
When asked if he deserved parole, Carneal was unenthusiastic. “I don’t know: Sometimes I think I deserve to be killed,” Carneal said. When asked about the hundreds of school shootings that followed in the decades since 1997, Carneal expressed remorse. “I feel responsible at some level,” he said.
Carneal received a parole hearing because he was a minor when he committed the crime. Carneal is believed to be the only U.S. school shooter to receive a parole hearing, according to the Courier Journal’s Andrew Wolfson – school shooters tend to either die by suicide or recieve a life sentence without parole due to changes in legislation since 1997. Following the board’s ruling, Carneal will never be considered for parole again.
