DeLAND - Three teenagers who authorities say were plotting to massacre fellow students at DeLand Middle School and then commit suicide will remain in juvenile lockup, a judge ruled Tuesday.
The two boys and a girl, all 13, stood as their names were called and listened as Volusia-based Circuit Judge Hubert Grimes ordered them to remain behind bars. All wore handcuffs and white jail uniforms.
The Orlando Sentinel is not identifying the children because of their ages.
The boy who Volusia County deputy sheriffs say hatched the plot — and lauded the Columbine killers on his MySpace page — appeared slight, less than 5 feet tall and younger than his age. The other two teens looked at their families and fidgeted as they waited.
All three were arrested Friday, each on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder, after the plan came to light through the first boy’s online correspondence with friends through MySpace. Authorities say he was trying to obtain a gun and threatened to lock the cafeteria doors and go on a shooting spree. Investigators searched his bedroom but found no weapons.
“Everyone will pay for what they did to me, they will die along with me,” the boy wrote, complaining that other kids were picking on him and had called him “worthless,” among other names.
The boy’s stepmother asked the judge to release him to home detention, but Grimes declined even though the youth has no previous criminal record.
According to a Volusia County sheriff’s report, the girl involved confirmed the plot to a school counselor and told her, “People like us have been picked on all our lives.” Authorities said she recently had attempted suicide.
Dr. Christopher Lucas, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, said children who feel alienated are more likely to be suicidal and to harbor fantasies of retaliating against people who bully or reject them. He was unfamiliar with the DeLand case.

orlandosentinel.com


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