‘KILLED MY OWN PARENTS’

Thurston High Shooter Kip Kinkel Speaks for First Time: ‘I Feel Tremendous Shame’

Kinkel murdered his parents and two classmates in 1998 at age 15, and he used his first interview since the spree to advocate for parole reform.

Kip Kinkel has given his first interview since the 1998 mass shooting in which he killed his mother, father, and two classmates at his Oregon high school. Then 15, he wounded 25 others when he opened fire in the Thurston High School cafeteria. Kinkel suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and told doctors that voices had told him to “kill everyone in the world.” He pleaded guilty and got 112 years in prison. He told HuffPost, “I’ve never done an interview. Partly because I feel tremendous, tremendous shame and guilt for what I did. And there’s an element of society that glorifies violence, and I hate the violence that I’m guilty of. I’ve never wanted to do anything that’s going to bring more attention… I killed my own parents, who I absolutely loved and who loved me and were good people. I shot and wounded completely innocent people that didn’t deserve anything bad to happen to them at all.”

The 38-year-old used the interview to advocate for prison reform for minors sentenced to life without parole, as he himself had been the focus of recent discussions in the Oregon state legislature. Lawmakers said a bill up for consideration would have allowed Kinkel to get out. They subsequently removed a provision that would have given minors sentenced to life a chance at parole.