4 Youths Held in Alleged ‘Massacre’ Plot at School

Four boys were in custody Saturday on charges they plotted a shooting at their middle school similar to last month’s rampage at Colorado’s Columbine High School.

Justin Schnepp and Jedaiah Zinzo, both 14, were charged as adults Thursday with conspiracy to commit murder for allegedly planning to kill classmates at the 560-student Holland Woods Middle School. The two were each held on $100,000 bail.

The two others, ages 12 and 13, have been charged as juveniles with the same crime.

“They planned to commit . . . a slaughter and massacre of Holland Woods students,” said Mary Kelly, a St. Clair County assistant prosecutor. She said the plot “had been in the planning and in the making for over a week.”

The four were arrested Wednesday and Thursday at their homes.

Prosecutors allege that the teens planned to top the death toll of the April 20 massacre in Littleton, Colo., where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide.

The district’s 12,000 students were told to stay home from its 21 campuses after a bomb was discovered near the Holland Woods campus Thursday night. Police say the bomb was not connected to the alleged plot.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said they rendered the bomb useless.

The boys’ alleged plans were discovered after a 14-year-old girl told police she overheard them talking about an elaborate killing spree. The girl told police she overheard some of the boys saying they wanted to kill all the school’s “preps,” the popular student clique.

The girl told police the boys said their plan was to go on a shooting spree during a gym assembly and detonate a bomb afterward.