Kip Kinkel

Born August 30, 1982 (Springfield, Oregon)

Murderer

Kip Kinkel confessed to killing his parents on May 20, 1998, and then opening fire the following day at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, killing two and wounding twenty-five. The following year he was sentenced to 111 years in prison. His case focused national attention on the continuing tragedy of school violence that plagued America in the late 1990s.

Special education

Kipland (Kip) Philip Kinkel was the second child born to Faith Zuranski and Bill Kinkel. His sister, Kristen, was nearly six years old when Kip was born in 1982. Both Bill and Faith were educators and took their children camping, hiking, and skiing almost every weekend. The Kinkel family moved to Spain for a year in 1986 and Kip entered his first year of formal schooling. His teacher did not speak English and it proved a difficult year for Kip.

"If Mr. Kinkel is sitting in prison without possibility of release for the rest of his life, it might—just might—keep some other young person from taking a gun to school. That would be the only positive thing that could come from this tragedy."

Mark Walker, father of Thurston victim Ben Walker

Upon returning to Oregon Kip was enrolled at Walterville Elementary School in Springfield. He repeated the first grade due to his slow emotional and physical development.
His parents enrolled him in karate classes where he did exceptionally well. Despite high IQ (intelligence quotient) scores, Kip continued to have problems in school and by third grade had qualified for special education services.

Kip's parents tutored him in the evenings when he fell behind at school. In addition, the family physician prescribed the drug Ritalin when it was decided he had attention deficit disorder, or ADD. (ADD is a learning and behavioral problem characterized by difficulty in sustaining attention and by impulse behavior. Ritalin is a drug that sometimes helps calm these symptoms.) There was also growing concern over Kip's interest in violence. The Kinkels disconnected their cable television service when they could no longer monitor Kip's viewing of violent programs.

In fourth grade Kip continued with special education and was diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning disability that interferes with the ability to recognize and comprehend written words. At the same time, however, he was placed in a Talented and Gifted program because he excelled in science and math. Despite being small for his age, Kip was good at sports in elementary school. Like his father, Kip was very competitive and had an uncontrollable temper.

In 1995 Kristen Kinkel transferred from the University of Oregon to Hawaii Pacific. No longer having his sister overseeing his activities, Kip began hanging out with a new group of boys and getting into serious trouble. Kip and three friends ordered bomb-building books over the Internet and began experimenting with explosives. One of Kip's friends sold him an old shotgun, which he kept hidden in his room. After several of the boys were caught shoplifting, the Kinkels pulled Kip out of Springfield's Thurston Middle School to tutor him at home for a year.

Criminal events continued in January 1997 when Kip joined a friend and his family on a trip to Bend, Oregon, for a snowboarding clinic. The two boys were arrested for throwing a twelve-inch rock onto a car from an overpass. Kip was taken into custody and his parents received a midnight call from the Bend Police Department. Once back home, the Kinkels put Kip in psychotherapy where he was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Kip needed to learn more appropriate ways to manage his anger. His mother was concerned about Kip's extreme interest in guns, knives, and explosives.

Kip also had a strained relationship with his father, who was his disciplinarian since his mother thought Kip was a good kid who just had some bad habits. Both parents wanted him to take responsibility for the rock-throwing incident in Bend and, following a mandatory interview at the Skipworth Juvenile Facility, Kip was required to complete thirty-two hours of community service, write a letter of apology, and pay for damages to the car that was hit.

Kip's final year in middle school ended in a two-day suspension for karate-kicking a schoolmate in the head for calling him names. Just three days later Kip received a three-day suspension for throwing a pencil at another boy. In June 1997 his psychologist recommended treatment with Prozac, an antidepressant drug. It seemed to be working well as both Kip's attitude and his grades began to improve. Kip remained on the drug the entire summer before he entered high school.

The Columbine Massacre

Eleven months after the Thurston tragedy, the scene was repeated in Littleton, Colorado. In April 1999 Columbine High School seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold brought an arsenal of weapons into school and opened fire. The boys arrived at their school, located in an affluent Denver suburb, wearing trench coats and carrying automatic weapons. They wounded twenty-six students and killed thirteen others. Working their way through the school, they killed one teacher before finally turning the guns on themselves when it became apparent they would not escape. Both Harris and Klebold came from apparently normal and loving families.

The Columbine assault was widely publicized and refocused attention on the issue of school violence in America. The tragedy started a wave of so-called "copycat" violence in schools, where people mimic crimes committed by others. Early in the twentieth century, school discipline problems generally involved running in the hall and other unruly behavior. By the end of the century, school problems included weapons possession, gang activity, and violent assaults against students and teachers alike.

Sensational media coverage of suburban school killings was seen as increasing public awareness, but also encouraging the copycat phenomenon. The media filled therole of turning mass murderers into pop celebrities.

The Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (Brady Law) was signed into law on November 30, 1993, in an effort to regulate increasingly powerful firearms. The Brady Law made it illegal for anyone under age twenty-one to purchase handguns from licensed dealers. The shooters at Columbine bypassed this problem by shopping at gun shows. Others, like Kip Kinkel, acquired guns by stealing them from their own homes or from the homes of others. The easy availability of weapons is of ongoing concern in the debate regarding school violence.

The identification of potentially violent and threatening students has become a priority in an attempt to reduce the incidents of school violence in the United States. A variety of areas have been singled out for study, including violence in popular music, television, and computer games. It was noted that kids playing point-and-shoot video games were getting the same training, and at a much younger age, as army recruits and police officers in America.

Exposure to violence is often made more severe by the availability of drugs, alcohol, and guns in schools. As the incidence of depression and suicide has increased among modern young people, so has the number of parents turning to mood altering drugs as an aid in parenting. The role of prescription drugs in the number of school shooters is a current topic for professionals in several fields searching for answers.

Thurston High School

Kip's fascination with firearms continued, however, and he begged his father to buy him a gun. Recently, Kip had secretly bought a .22-caliber pistol from a friend and kept it hidden from his parents. Bill Kinkel did not own any weapons but after resisting for some time decided on a new tactic. He reasoned that buying Kip a legally registered gun and teaching him how to properly use and care for it might decrease his son's fascination.

Father and son reached an agreement that Kip would do the research on the model he wanted and would pay for it with his own money. He was not to use the gun without his father and it would only become his when he turned twenty-one. The gun they purchased was a 9 mm Glock, just like the ones carried by many police officers.

Kip entered Thurston High School the fall of 1997. Things looked like they were going very well for the young freshman when the football coach invited him to tryout for the team. His sense of humor earned him attention as the class clown, and his social time was spent with a group of friends who called themselves "the good guys." Because he wanted to distance himself from more problems, Kip spent most of his time with this new group but maintained some contact with his old friends. Kip's parents believed things might be turning around for their troubled son.

The Kinkel home was in a rural area along the McKenzie River several miles from town. Kinkel's friends lived in town, closer to the school. He spent time with them there whenever possible. When alone at home, he spent hours walking up and down the road shooting birds and rodents with his shotgun and pistol. He boasted of his hunting exploits at school but no one paid much attention since most of the boys did the same.

When Kip gave a presentation in speech class titled "How to Make a Bomb," it seemed ordinary compared with many of the other topics presented. Likewise, Kip's continued talk of shooting things and blowing up the school seemed like more evidence of male bravado (trying to impress by acting tougher) and Kip's weird sense of humor.

A day of tragedy

Throughout the fall of 1997 and into 1998 the United States experienced a sudden outbreak of school shootings, each highlighted in the national media. Schools were on alert and there was little tolerance for weapons violations. On May 20, 1998, Kip and another freshman were arrested at Thurston High School on charges involving the possession and sale of a stolen handgun.

Kip was taken to the Springfield Police Station where he was fingerprinted and photographed. He was charged with five felonies, the most serious being possession of a firearm on school grounds. Among other things, Kip would be suspended from school for a year. Bill Kinkel picked his son up around noon and they stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. They agreed not to upset Kip's mother with the news while she was working. They would wait for her to get home that evening. Kip was especially sensitive to the fact that his parents were teachers and he had embarrassed them in front of their peers.

Father and son were home by 2:00 p.m. that afternoon and both received phone calls from friends. Bill Kinkel also made a call to the director of a residential program for troubled teens in Bend. Sometime between 3:00 and 4:30 p.m. that afternoon, Kip took a .22 rifle and shot his father in the back of the head from about ten feet away. He took the body into the bathroom and covered it with a white sheet, then waited for his mother to come home. Faith Kinkel arrived home from work around 6:30 p.m. Kip went down to the garage to help her
carry up groceries. He told his mother he loved her, then shot her several times and covered her body with a sheet.

Kip stayed up all that night and then drove his mother's car into Springfield. He arrived at Thurston High School around eight on the morning of May 21 and parked a block away. Wearing a long tan trench coat to hide the pistols in his waistband and the rifle at his side, Kip headed toward the school cafeteria. By the time he was wrestled to the ground by classmates, Kip had killed two students and wounded twenty-five more.

The trial

Less than twenty-four hours after his initial arrest, Kip Kinkel was back in the custody of the Springfield Police Department. Secured in an interview room and locked in handcuffs, Kip managed to retrieve a hunting knife he had taped to his leg and attacked the returning detective. He was quickly subdued. During the ensuing interview, Kip confessed to killing his parents. The recovery of their bodies was delayed while officials disarmed a series of bombs in the Kinkel home, including one placed under his mother's body.

On May 22 Kip was arraigned and charged with four counts of aggravated murder, and in June he was indicted on an additional fifty-eight felony charges. Under a plea agreement entered September 24, 1999, Kip pled guilty to four counts of murder and twenty-six counts of attempted murder. The guilty plea eliminated a jury trial as well as the possibility of Kip being acquitted by an insanity defense.

Both sides had tried cases in Lane County before circuit court judge Jack Mattison and had found him to be fair. Before deciding Kinkel's sentence, the judge heard testimony from detectives and physicians as well as friends and family of both the accused and his victims. The defense presented a number of experts in an effort to prove Kip was mentally ill. After a six-day hearing, Kip Kinkel was sentenced to 111 years in prison without the possibility of parole.

Kinkel was immediately transferred to MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility, a state juvenile prison where violent offenders undergo a program of intensive therapy. Offenders remain at the facility until it is determined they are suitable for adult prison. Kinkel's defense team began a series of appeals. In January 2004, Kinkel's attorneys filed a petition seeking a new trial. The petition, filed in Marion County Circuit Court in Salem, Oregon, claimed evidence of Kinkel's mental illness had been disregarded at his trial.

For More Information

Books

Bonilla, Denise M., ed. School Violence. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 2000.

Levinson, David, ed. Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002.

Periodicals

King, Patricia, and Andrew Murr, "A Son Who Spun Out of Control." Newsweek (June 1, 1998): pp. 32–33.

Sullivan, Randall, "A Boy's Life: Part I." Rolling Stone (September 17, 1998): pp. 76–85, 106–107.

Sullivan, Randall, "A Boy's Life: Part II." Rolling Stone (October 1, 1998): pp. 46–54, 72.

Web Site

"The Killer at Thurston High." PBS Online and WGBH/Frontline.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/kip (accessed on August 15, 2004).