PEARL, Miss. (AP) - Stan Harrell swears he'll never fuss at his daughter,
16-year-old Kelly, for being late to school
again. If she had been on time on Wednesday, Oct. 1, she would have been in the
line of fire when the shooting
started.
This past Thursday night, Stan overheard his daughter in her room. Like many in
this largely Baptist community
of 22,000 people, she was praying.
What folks here are wondering now is just who some of the other kids in town may
have been praying to.
In the aftermath of the killings and arrests, there is dark talk of a satanic
cult, of a clique of misfit teens who
dressed in black and called themselves "The Group." Prosecutors and civic
leaders seem to think there may be
something to it.
Bordering the city of Jackson, Pearl is a peaceful-looking town of red-brick,
one-story ranch houses, most with
flower gardens out front and welcome signs on the small front porches where
people sit after dinner. The houses
line narrow streets lush with large oaks and willow trees. On the outskirts,
beyond clusters of rusting house
trailers, 8-year-old Pearl High School sprawls across a pristine campus of
manicured lawns and athletic fields.
Last Friday, police found a sheet of scorched paper, it edges burned to form a
jagged edge, taped to the school
wall next to the main entrance. On it, someone has drawn a skull and crossbones
and an Iron Cross, and written
the words: "Luke is God. From your friends at Pearl High School."
Luke would be Luke Woodham, the 16-year-old who is charged with slashing his
mother to death with a butcher
knife and then opening fire on his classmates with a rifle. He is accused of
killing Lydia Dew, 17, and his former
girlfriend, Christina Menefee, and wounding seven other students, leaving them
bleeding on the polished floor of
the school cafeteria.
Roy Balentine, the principal, dashed out of his office when he heard the first
shots.
"I ran out to see if something possibly malfunctioned," he said. "I was hoping
that's what it was, but I knew it
sounded like gunshots."
He saw Woodham, about 15 or 20 feet away, wearing a big, blue coat and holding a
rifle. Balentine dangled both
arms to show how Woodham held the rifle low out in front of him.
Fearing Woodham would come for him next, Balentine ran to his office to call the
police. As he dialed, more shots
rang out. More students fell.
Minutes later, Assistant Principal Joel Myrick chased Woodham down outside the
school, held him at bay with a
.45-caliber automatic pistol he kept in his truck in the school parking lot. He
forced Woodham to the ground and
put his foot on the youth's neck.
"I think he's a coward," Myrick said. "I had my weapon pointed at his face, and
he didn't want to die."
It seemed an open-and-shut case - a single young gunman.
But then, a week later, six other teens, described as Woodham's friends, were
taken to jail on charges that they
had conspired to murder Pearl High School students and some of their parents.
There had been whispers that some kids in town may have been toying with the
occult. In the aftermath,
townspeople have latched onto the rumors as an explanation for the seemingly
unexplainable.
"On the street, they're talking about some devil cults, and I'm sure there's
good reason for that," said Mayor
Jimmie Foster, whose son was allegedly targeted by Woodham, but was late for
school that day.
Foster, a former Pearl police officer, said that during the years, there have
been scattered signs of cult activity in
town. "Cult signs, maybe a couple of pets missing, but we never found the
carcasses," he said.
The Rev. Martin Ruane, whose St. Jude's Catholic Church is just a few homes away
from where Luke Woodham's
rampage began, said he counseled a local teen-ager last year because he had
"some involvement in this devil-type
thing." But he said he doubts that 17-year-old Wesley Brownell, a parishioner
who was among those arrested and
charged with conspiracy to murder, was involved in such things.
Delbert Shaw, whose son Delbert, 18, was among those arrested, asserted that
"some of the boys were in a cult"
and that "they tried to recruit my son."
"But my son hasn't done anything," he said. "He wasn't in a cult and that's all
I have to say."
Prosecutor John Kitchens, Rankin County's district attorney, his investigation
"has led us to believe that there is
satanic activity occurring in this county."
He said he has not ruled out the idea that the youths arrested this month are
involved.
Ed Rainer, attorney for one of the youths, Grant Boyette, 18, of nearby Brandon,
called the demonic rumors
nonsense. But the talk is everywhere.
Page created 10/11/97 10:35 PM
Copyright 1997 Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Some material copyright 1997 The
Associated
Press.
