ARDMORE - A teenager who planned to kill as many as 10 students and teachers at Ardmore High School on the first day of class armed himself with swords purchased off the Internet but was foiled by another youth, police said Monday.
Authorities said the 16-year-old apparently wasn’t just making idle threats and might have tried to stage a massacre when fall classes open on Wednesday.
“He was wanting to do it on the first day of school because the body count would be higher,” Ardmore police Sgt. Tracy Luna said Monday.
Luna said the teenager had bought five swords off Web sites, including one concealed inside a cane that he could have sneaked inside the school.
The youth also had knives and a razor and had compiled a list of seven to 10 intended victims, apparently chosen at random, with his plans detailed in words and sketches, according to Luna.
“He had a lot of drawings, gory stuff,” he said.
The youth’s arrest was first reported by The Decatur Daily. His plot allegedly included boiling a teacher alive.
The youth approached several other teens seeking guns, police said, but no one would help him. Luna said a student notified police after the youth threatened him, leading to the arrest Friday night.
The teen’s name wasn’t released because he is a juvenile, and the name of his attorney was unknown. The, teen charged with making terrorist threats, on Monday was ordered held in juvenile detention until Aug. 12, when a judge will evaluate the case again.
The teen also was accused of obscenity charges for images of child pornography found on his computer, Luna said.
Luna said the teen lived with a relative who described him as a loner who rarely left home. The relative told investigators the teen had lived with a parent in a crack house before moving to Ardmore, which straddles the Tennessee state line.
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