WINFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Authorities have arrested an 18-year-old senior whom they accuse of plotting a massacre in the halls of his high school in eastern Missouri.
Donald G. Walters is charged with conspiracy to commit assault in the first degree, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported Thursday. Walters was jailed Wednesday in Lincoln County on $50,000 bond. He did not yet have a listed attorney.
Police said two other students at Winfield High School alerted authorities that Walters had crafted a plot to shoot as many students and staff there as he could. Walters wrote a note on his computer that read, "I hate everything and everyone; I wanted everyone to die," according to police
Authorities say Walters told one of the students at the beginning of the school year to make a list of people he wanted dead, Lincoln County Sheriff's Department Maj. Kurt Venneman said. The student thought Walters was joking.
"This past week is when he came back in and said, 'I've been doing some research on the Internet, this is going to go down so get your list together,"' Venneman said. "That's when the student got kind of scared and said this kid may really be serious."
That student and another notified an administrator. The school's resource officer was notified, and Walters was pulled from class and arrested.
Lincoln County authorities said Walters admitted to his scheme, saying his plan was to attack the resource officer and get her gun, then run through the halls at school and shoot as many people as he could.
Walters did not have a written list of those he wanted dead, but had a list in his head, Venneman said. And Venneman said it was a lengthy list.
Walters also allegedly admitted to doing research on the Internet about how to make guns and other weapons. Police say they retrieved images of weapons from Walters' computer, along with video clips about how to build and shoot guns. No weapons were found in a search of Walters' home.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com