Manage our schools and communities, and live our lives. What he also meant is that if we are to preventįuture shootings, we need to reflect on how we care for our children, Here?â By that he meant that a school-related shooting like this, involvingĪ troubled and impulsive boy with access to a gun, could happen any. Question,â a school administrator told us. Horrible tragedy happen in such a good community?â âThatâs the wrong ÂIn memory of John Gillette, April 24, 1999.âĪfter John Gilletteâs death, people who live in this small and pictur-Įsque lakeside town have repeatedly asked themselves, âHow could this Shooting, is dominated by a large gray stone engraved with these words: One corner of the garden, which was dedicated a year after the Made of decorative stones with messages and designs made by Parker Yards away is a well-tended garden with several stone walkways, each Inscription: âJohnâs Bench/Friend, Teacher, Builder/John Gillette.â A few Mounted on one side is a small brass plaque with a three-line Surrounded by a large square wall made of brick, with a cement slab on topįor seating. School, but near the front entrance that impression changes. From a distance, there is nothing remarkable about the Many ways typical of modern, suburban-style middle schools found across June 7, 2001: Parker Middle School is a large, sprawling complex, in Soon be pulling out a semiautomatic handgun and killing John Gillette at Imagine that this slightly built and callow middle school student would His arms are tightlyĬrossed, his face expressionless. Mop of thick, dark brown hair covering his forehead. Looks like an unexceptional 14-year-old boy, with blue eyes, glasses, and a Andrew sits awkwardly at a banquet table,ĭressed in a dark blue sports coat, white shirt, and blue and tan tie. Grade class at Parker Middle School in Washington Township, just north Occasion is the end-of-the-year dinner dance for the graduating eighth Than an hour before he shot and killed science teacher John J. He will not be eligible for parole until age 45.Īpril 24, 1998: There is a photograph of Andrew Wurst taken less Palmisano sentenced Andrew to serve 30 to 60 years in Adjudicated asĪn adult, Andrew eventually accepted a plea on third-degree murder. 25 caliber semiautomatic pistol, An-ĭrew also wounded another teacher and two classmates. on Friday, April 24, 1998, AndrewJerome Wurst, age 14, shot and killed science teacher John J.Gillette, at an eighth grade school dance held at Nickâs Place, aīanquet hall near the Parker Middle School just north of Edinboro, Penn. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.Ī t approximately 9:40 p.m. Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book.