The Washington state high-school freshman who shot five students in a school cafeteria last week had invited the victims to lunch by text message, investigators revealed Monday. While two victims have died, three remain hospitalized in critical to satisfactory condition.
Fifteen-year-old Jaylen Fryberg, a football player who had been declared the homecoming prince a week earlier, used a relative's legal .40 caliber Beretta pistol to gun down the five victims at a lunch table before shooting himself in the head in Friday's attack at Marysville Pilchuck High School near Seattle, Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said at a news conference on Monday.
"We know that the shooter had arranged to meet with friends at the lunch table," he said. "It's our understanding he did so by texting."
Zoe R. Galasso, 14, was killed at the scene of the shooting while 14-year-old Gia Soriano died at a hospital on Sunday night after suffering from a gunshot in the head, according to the county medical examiner's office, who added that contrary to reports claiming that a physical struggle between the shooter and a teacher had led to the accidental death of Fryberg, a medical examination ruled it to be a suicide, Los Angeles Times reported.
Additionally, Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, is in critical condition at Providence Regional Medical Center while Andrew Fryberg, 15, was "critical in intensive care" and Nate Hatch, 14, was "satisfactory" at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, the hospital said late Monday.
On Monday, Hatch posted a message of forgiveness on Twitter. "I love you and I forgive you jaylen rest in peace," he wrote. A friend confirmed the feed's authenticity to The Associated Press.
As part of an investigation that could take several months, investigators are still combing through text messages, phone and social media records to determine a motive. "The question everybody wants is, 'Why?'" Trenary said. "I don't know that the 'why' is something we can provide."
Although classmates described Fryberg as having appeared to be happy, recent vague social media postings seemed to suggest anguish over the recent breakup with his girlfriend. "It won't last ... it'll never last," he wrote Thursday in his last posting on Twitter.
Two days earlier he wrote: "It breaks me ... It actually does ... I know it seems like I'm sweating it off.... But I'm not.... And I never will be."
"We are devastated by this senseless tragedy. Gia is our beautiful daughter and words cannot express how much we will miss her. We've made the decision to donate Gia's organs so that others may benefit. Our daughter was loving, kind and this gift honors her life," Soriano's family said in a statement, adding that Gia's organs would be donated.
Meanwhile, leaders of the city of Marysville and of the local Tulalip Tribes released a joint statement, promising unity. Fryberg was a member of a prominent Tulalip Indian Tribes family, according to NBC News.
"When one tragedy impacts the Marysville and Tulalip communities and the people who call this area home, we all suffer, and we stand together in times of crisis," Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring said in the statement. "We live, work and play together, and as time goes by we will heal together."
