From Isaiah Shoels to Cassie Bernall, go inside the heartbreaking deaths of the Columbine shooting victims who lost their lives on April 20, 1999.
At first, the students gathered in the cafeteria at Columbine High School thought that the sudden cracking noise — which sounded like firecrackers — was part of a senior class prank. Then, someone screamed, “Get down!” No one knew it at the time, but high school seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had just started a massacre. Twelve students and one teacher would soon tragically become the 13 Columbine shooting victims.
The Columbine school shooting began at 11:19 a.m. After throwing a pipe bomb toward the parking lot, which only partially detonated, Harris and Klebold began firing their guns, killing the first Columbine victim, 17-year-old Rachel Scott, as she ate her lunch on the grass outside the school. The two shooters kept firing as they approached the school, next killing 15-year-old Daniel Rohrbough as he walked outside with some friends.
“This is what we always wanted to do,” one of the shooters yelled, according to the terrified witnesses nearby. “This is awesome!”
After fatally shooting computer and business teacher William David “Dave” Sanders, Harris and Klebold made their way to the library. There, they would massacre many more Columbine victims, most of whom were hiding under tables: 16-year-old Kyle Velasquez, 14-year-old Steven Curnow, 17-year-old Cassie Bernall, 18-year-old Isaiah Shoels, 16-year-old Matthew Kechter, 18-year-old Lauren Townsend, 16-year-old John Tomlin, 16-year-old Kelly Fleming, 15-year-old Daniel Mauser, and 17-year-old Corey DePooter.
The shooting lasted less than an hour. At 12:08 p.m., Harris and Klebold turned their weapons on themselves and died by suicide. Controversially, they are sometimes counted among the Columbine victims.
But while countless articles have been written about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold — ranging from their motives to their mental health — fewer have been written about the Columbine shooting victims. These are the stories of the 13 people who were murdered in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999, during one of the most infamous school shootings in U.S. history.
Rachel Scott: The First Columbine Victim
Wikimedia CommonsRachel Scott was the first Columbine victim to be fatally shot during the massacre.
Rachel Joy Scott was the first of the Columbine victims. On April 20, 1999, the 17-year-old was having lunch outside with her friend, Richard Castaldo, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold approached them.
Scott, born on August 5, 1981, was outwardly outgoing and energetic. She was involved in theater and had several friends. But deep down, Scott sometimes struggled with dark, overwhelming thoughts. “I feel like I have a heavy heart and this burden in me… It’s like I want to cry and I don’t even know why,” she wrote in a diary entry exactly one year before her death.
Later that same year, Rachel Scott seemed to eerily predict her own murder when she penned: “This feeling… it isn’t suicide, I consider it homicide. The world you have created has led to my death.”
But April 20, 1999 seemed like it would be a normal day for Scott. She drove to school with her younger brother, Craig, and later grabbed lunch with her friend, Richard Castaldo. But as Scott and Castaldo sat near the west entrance of the school, Harris and Klebold spotted them — and opened fire.
Denver Public LibraryAfter her death, Rachel Scott’s car became a makeshift memorial.
Scott was shot four times; Castaldo was shot eight times. Castaldo, who survived but was left paralyzed, later told his mother that the killers “taunted and teased [Scott] about God” before killing her. Though he later expressed doubts about the memory — and there’s no concrete evidence that she was targeted because of her faith — some members of Scott’s family are sure that that’s what happened, especially since she was a devout Christian.
“She was mocked for her faith, they knew her, they had a class with her,” Scott’s brother, Craig, told Oprah in 2013. “And the last moment of her life was Eric picked her up by her hair and said, ‘You still believe in God?’ and she said, ‘You know I do.’ And he said, ‘Well, go be with him.'”
Her family later started Rachel’s Challenge, a non-profit for school violence prevention. They believe it fulfills a drawing that Rachel Scott made when she was 13 by tracing her hands and leaving a note: “These hands belong to Rachel Joy Scott and will someday touch millions of people’s hearts.”
