Student Shoots Teacher, Kills Himself

A suspended student shot a teacher in the face at his high school Thursday and then killed himself with a shot to the temple. A second teacher died, although authorities were unsure whether she was shot or suffered a heart attack.

Toby R. Sincino, 16, had been expelled last school year but was back on probationary status. He was suspended again Wednesday after making an obscene gesture on a school bus and faced another expulsion.

On Thursday, he walked through a back door at Blackville-Hilda High School armed with a .32-caliber revolver. He passed two classrooms and entered a third, where he shot math teacher Johnny Thompson, 38, investigators said. Thompson was in serious but stable condition, said Rubenia Hammond, a spokeswoman for Aiken Regional Medical Centers.

Sincino continued down the hall where he apparently confronted another math teacher, Phyllis Senn, 56, who was later found dead in a teachers’ work room, State Law Enforcement Division spokesman Hugh Munn said. No wounds were visible on her body, and an autopsy will be conducted today to determine how she died.

Sincino’s father, Randolph, said his son was a small boy who sometimes was picked on by other students in this rural town of 3,000 people about 45 miles south of Columbia.