1998 Oregon school shooter: ‘tremendous shame and guilt’

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SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Kip Kinkel, who killed his parents before going on a shooting rampage at his Oregon high school in 1998, killing two classmates and injuring 25 more, has given his first news interview, telling HuffPost he feels “tremendous, tremendous shame and guilt.”

Kinkel, now 38, is serving a de facto life sentence at the Oregon State Correctional Institution. He spoke with the news site by phone for about 20 hours over 10 months.

He said he felt guilty not just for what he did as a 15-year-old suffering from then-undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, but the effect his crime has had on other juvenile offenders sentenced to life terms: His case has been held up by some of his victims and by others as a reason to oppose juvenile justice reform in the state.

While he has not previously given interviews because he did not want to further traumatize his victims, he said, he also began to feel that his silence was preventing those offenders from getting a second chance.

“I have responsibility for the harm that I caused when I was 15,” Kinkel said. “But I also have responsibility for the harm that I am causing now as I’m 38 because of what I did at 15.”


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