Aaron Poelker

Theology Research Paper

            Kip Kinkel was a somewhat normal teenage boy living in the heart of the American Northwest. He had seen the world from an early age by living in Spain with his father, Bill Kinkel, his mother, Faith Kinkel, and his older sister, Kristin Kinkel. The reason for the families change of scenery in 1986, from the Pacific Northwest to the Iberian peninsula in which Spain is situated, was a year sabbatical from teaching for Bill Kinkel.

            Upon arrival in Spain Kip and his sister Kristin were placed in the 3^rd and 5^th grade, respectively, although their ages seemingly would have placed them in lower grades. Kip immediately displayed signs of learning disabilities in his predominately Spanish-speaking classroom. Kip’s sister remembered, “it was a difficult time for him.” After Bill Kinkel’s year furlough in Spain the family returned to the states. When the family returned to the states, Bill and Faith immediately felt that Kip needed to repeat the first grade. After a below average academic performance in Spain, Kip’s parents, “felt that Kip lacked the maturity and had slow emotional and physical development.”

            After a slow start to his academic career, Kip started functioning as an average to above average student as early as the second grade. His parents shocked at the sudden increase in academic aptitude and Kip’s inability to master even the spelling of his own last name, asked his grade school to test to see if Kip had a learning disability and if so, if he qualified for special educational opportunities. Although the Bill and Faith Kinkel had widely speculated that Kip had a learning disability, the test results the school provided proved otherwise. According to the test Kip had taken he scored in the 90^th percentile on an intelligence test, well above the average, and also compiled a mediocre score on the neurological test. Although Kip exhibited an uncanny ability to work hard during these tests, his teacher noticed a somewhat unusually high nervousness and inability to cope with frustration. His teacher testified in court that “her only concerns were that he had a remarkably low score on one motor/hand skill, and that he was having great problems with spelling.”

            Although Kip exhibited some signs of depression and learning disabilities, he was promoted to the 3^rd grade. During Kip’s 3^rd grade tenure his father decided to retire from teaching and began volunteer work teaching night classes at a local community college. Even when Kip excelled in areas regarding mathematics he still displayed problems with reading and writing. After another test to see as to whether Kip qualified for special educational opportunities it was determined that, in fact, he did qualify. Still, after qualifying for special education opportunities Kip maintained high grades of A’s and B’s in all core subjects that year.

            Kip’s fourth grade years brought news of a diagnosed learning disability. He had continued to be in the special education classes while simultaneously being enrolled in his grade school’s classes for the gifted due to Kip’s outstanding performances in mathematics and science.

            Kip maintained a fairly low profile in his fifth and sixth grade years, mostly keeping out of trouble and maintaining high grades in school, but in seventh grade something new was introduced to Kip. His sister, Kristin, had left home with a full scholarship offer from Hawaii Pacific to cheerlead. After his sisters departure Kip and his friends began using the internet to research various ways of obtaining and in some cases building homemade bombs. This fascination of Kip’s and his friends with explosives led them to mail order the infamous book The Anarchist Cookbook.

            The Anarchist Cookbook is a book made famous during the 1960's amongst Vietnam war protestors. The book contains recipes and instructions on how to build small explosives, drugs, and other many devices intended for telecommunications hacking. The book, although its title suggests, has no connection to the actual anarchists’ movement. The book due to its nature has been labeled by many as a terrorist book and is even illegal to own in several countries worldwide and is even illegal, in some counties, to sell to any persons under the age of 21. Advocates of the book maintain the belief that the book is “more as a set of guidelines, or a book of ideas, rather than instruction manual for terrorists.”

            When Kip and his friends were caught with The Anarchist Cookbook Faith Kinkel began to worry about her child and his choice of friends. During his eighth grade year, even with the recent findings of Kip’s mail order explosives books, his father decided to purchase him a 9mm .22 caliber handgun and .308 caliber shotgun hoping the guns would distract Kip away terrorist ideas and devote his attention to a closely monitored hobby. After his father’s decision to purchase him two guns the idea of obtaining more guns became an obsession for Kip and eventually lead to him purchasing an old sawed-off shotgun from an undisclosed friend.

            His eighth grade year would see much more drama. That year he was caught stealing CD’s from a local Target store and also a much more serious offense involving a rock being thrown. The incident occurred when a friend of Kip’s decided to invite him on a snow boarding trip in Bend, Oregon. Kip and his friend would be arrested for throwing rocks off a highway overpass and striking a car below. Although Kip had taken part in this incident he showed serious signs of remorse and immediately asked the arresting officer if anyone was injured. Kip was held overnight at the Department of Youth Services in Eugene, Oregon.

            Almost immediately after the rock throwing incident, Bill and Faith Kinkel decided to take Kip to see Dr. Jeffrey Hicks, a child psychologist. Scattered throughout Dr. Hicks notes were various outcries from Faith Kinkel about Kip’s angry management and his obsession with firearms and was deeply afraid that this could lead to Kip eventually hurting either himself and/or others. Dr. Hicks notes also showed a somewhat pessimistic attitude toward Kip from his father Bill. His father saw him as, “a bad kid with bad habits.” During these sessions Dr. Hicks diagnosed Kip with major depressive disorder.

            In compilation with state law Kip was taken to see another psychologist after his arrest. This time Dr. John Crumbley stated that Kip, “was not typical of the delinquent kids he usually sees, in that he was appropriately remorseful and quite straightforward about his part in the crime.” After Kip’s session with Dr. Crumbley Kip, was sentenced to 32 hours of community service.

            Kip continued, though, to see Dr. Hicks and several times Dr. Hicks noted Kip’s continual depressive state and his interest in explosives and other firearms, but never once did he feel Kip was suicidal. During April of Kip’s eighth grade year he was suspended twice, once for kicking a student in the head and a second suspension for throwing a pencil at another student. After a sixth counseling session, Dr. Hicks decided it was appropriate for Kip to put onto the common antidepressant drug Prozac.

            Prozac is a common antidepressant but is also used to treat people afflicted with bulimia, panic attacks, or obsessive compulsive disorder. Many criticisms of Prozac have been made and sometimes even people who are on Prozac complain that the drug causes them suicidal feelings.

            After two more counseling sessions, Dr. Hicks wrote in his notes that Kip had made continual improvement and that the Prozac seemed to working well. Although all of those assumptions were made by Dr. Hicks without possessing any knowledge that Bill Kinkel had been buying his son firearms while on a controversial antidepressant. Later Dr. Hicks would testify in court that “no one consulted me about that decision, and yes, I have concerns about that.”

            Things began to look up for the Kinkel family and more notably Kip when he entered Thurston High School. He continued improving behaviorally and was even asked to try out for the freshman football team. During his fall semester at Thurston High School, Kip was taken off of Prozac after only three months. Signs of Kip’s aggression, however, continued when he gave a speech in class about how to make a bomb. The speech did not seem controversial at the time though. After continual signs of misbehavior Kip is grounded for petty offenses such as toilet papering a house. After these incidents Kip decided to purchase a stolen pistol from a school friend named Korey Ewert for about 110 dollars. Scott Keeney, the man whom the pistol was stolen from, called Thurston High School the day after his gun went missing and provided the school with a list of about twelve or so students who might have stolen the gun. After questioning various students by the police, Kip was taken out of class to be questioned himself.

            Kip eventually admitted to having the stolen gun in his locker and provided the officer with Korey Ewert’s name as to how he obtained the gun. Both students were immediately arrested and escorted off the premisses of the school. Pending review by the school board the two boys were threatened with expulsion. Kip was escorted to the police station where he was charged with possession of a firearm in a public building and a felony of possessing a stolen weapon.

            The day was not yet over. Bill Kinkel had been contacted by Scott Keeney, the man whom the stolen gun Kip bought belonged to, and confessed to not knowing what to do about Kip and that he was out of control. While Bill was in the kitchen drinking coffee, Kip had taken his rifle and loaded it with ammunition and shot and killed his father with one single shot to the back of the head. Kip then dragged his father’s body and covered it with a bed sheet and placed his body in the bathroom. At around 6:00 P.M. the same day, Faith Kinkel arrived home from work to be greeted by Kip in the garage. Kip then proceeded to shoot his mother six times, killing her.

            The next day, without any public knowledge of what he had done, Kip left his house with a backpack full of ammunition, three guns, and a hunting knife. As he walked down the hallway Kip then shot fellow student Ben Walker in the head and also shot and injured a student named Ryan Atteberry. Kip then entered the cafeteria and opened fire injuring many students, killing one named Mikael Nickolauson. Heroics were not all absent this day. Jake Ryker had noticed that Kip ran out of bullets and was stopping to reload lunged at Kip and proceeded to subdue, with the help of two fellow students, Kip until the authorities arrived at the scene.

            While at the police station Kip confessed to killing his parents, exclaiming “no other choice.” Kip’s attorneys immediately plead insanity in the murder case, but three days before jury selection was set to begin Kip pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder ruling out any chance of pleading insanity.

            In November of 1999 Kip was sentenced to 111 years in prison without chance of parole. Kip’s attorneys reasoned that pleading guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges left a better chance for Kip to face a substantially less amount of prison time, as low as 25 years.

            Currently Kip is serving his seventh year of a 111 year prison sentence in a maximum security state penitiary. Many issues have been raised regarding child imprisonment and death penalty. Various scientists have even argued that children even between the ages of 16-18 biologically cannot make the same kind of rational decisions as full grown adults. A Professor of Neurology at UCLA says of scientists who want to challenge the 1989 Supreme Court Ruling that set the minimum age of the death penalty to sixteen , “I think the scientists who say the evidence to date should be used to end the death penalties [for juveniles] may be going out on a limb.”

            The story of Kip Kinkel is an interesting, ironic story of a boy who struggled with depression and outlets for anger. His story is a macrocosm for the bigger issue of attention and wanting love. Kip Kinkel struggled to be understood and was depressed, his depression even lead him to kill the very people who had given him the gift of life. Never again should depression lead someone to the things Kip Kinkel did.

Aaron Poelker

Work cited page

Davies, Paul. “Psychiatrists Question Death for Teen Killers.” The Wall Street Journal. 26 May 2004: B1-B3.

“The killer at thurston high.” Frontline: the killer at thurston high. 1995. PBS Frontline. 13 February 2006. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/>.

“The killer at thurston high.” PBS Frontline. PBS. May 2004.

“Kip Kinkel- killer.” Kip Kinkel, another "Manchurian Candidate.” 13 February 2006. <http://judicial-inc.biz/kip_kinkel.htm>.

“Kip Kinkel.” Kip Kinkel. 13 February 2006. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Kinkel>.