Boys Hoped to Top Littleton Death Toll, Prosecutor Says

Four teenagers plotted to buy and steal weapons for a massacre at their middle school that would top the death toll at Columbine High School, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

“This was to be a Colorado-style shooting and bombing. . . . The goal was to kill more people than in Columbine,” said St. Clair County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Wendling, referring to last month’s Littleton school shootings in which two gunmen killed 13 people, then themselves.

The boys also planned to rape girls at the Holland Woods Middle School, Wendling said at the arraignment for two of the suspects, both 13 years old. He would not elaborate on the charge outside of court.

Defense lawyers said the boys have a clean record and that the Colorado shootings had created “hysteria” in the schools.

“His only problem at the school was talking in class and running in the halls,” said Frank Mitchell, an attorney for one youth.

All four boys face adult charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. If convicted, the older boys, both 14, would automatically draw life prison sentences without possibility of parole. A judge would have the option of sentencing the younger boys to a lesser sentence.

The 13-year-old boys were ordered held on $100,000 bail. The 14-year-olds were arraigned Friday and ordered held on the same bond.

Police arrested the students Wednesday after two classmates told an assistant principal that they overheard the boys plotting the shootings.

In court Tuesday, prosecutors said the four boys planned to buy weapons, then use them to commit a robbery that would yield still more weapons. The boys had picked a specific time for the attack and had a hit list, prosecutors said.