Last Day on Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter

~ ~ ~

ON APRIL 8, 1997, Elk Grove High School denies a request by Steve’s parents to have a case study evaluation. They give his parents a handbook on dealing with students with disabilities. By this point, Steve’s parents see him as mentally disabled and are asking for help, but the school refuses to help. April 13, Steve overdoses on forty Ambien and slits his wrists. Hospitalized at Rush. In the fall of his senior year, November 4, 1997, he tells his mother he doesn’t want to go to school anymore. They fight, he says he’s not going, and then, at 11:00 p.m., he takes fifty Depakote, an entire bottle, and goes to sleep.

He’s surprised to wake up in the morning. And he’s able to get dressed, go to school, but his first teacher notices right away how drowsy he is, and he’s taken to the nurse’s office. “I want to die,” he tells the nurse, according to the police report. “Life sucks.” This time he’s taken to Alexian Brothers Hospital. His mother arrives within an hour, but does this make a difference to him?

They keep him in for only three days, which his friends feel was too short a time, driven by insurance limitations. Two months later, he’s back at Alexian again, January 10, 1998, for suicidal thoughts. Four days earlier, the cops stopped him, along with Pete Rachowsky, after a neighbor reported they were smoking marijuana. The next month, February 7 to 11, he’s back again in Alexian. While he’s there, on February 9, his father walks into the police station and tells them Pete Rachowsky is dealing acid, fake acid, marijuana, and something else he can’t remember the name of. The information is from his son, Steve. Pete keeps his drugs hidden in his radio. Steve’s father wants Pete and several other high-school dropout drug dealers kept away from his son.

Steve gets out of Alexian on February 11 and goes back the next day, February 12, for suicidal thoughts and violent mood swings. He’s constantly up and down on all the meds, all over the place, a mess, and maybe he’s scared, also, about what will happen with Pete. He takes 120 Depakote, enough that he really should be dead, but even that doesn’t work.

Steve’s father talks with the police again on March 2. He has more information now. Pete sells in Lions Park, near the high school, and keeps his drugs in the battery compartment of his Walkman. The police bust Pete for marijuana possession.

The next week, on March 10, after dinner, Steve fights with his mother about Pete. She doesn’t want him hanging out with Pete anymore. He storms out at seven o’clock wearing his trench coat and jeans, and she calls the police to file a missing juvenile report and lists Steve as mentally disabled. “He suffers from depression,” she tells them. “He didn’t take his last two doses of medication.”

He walks to John Frazetto’s house, but John isn’t home. The police call and find out he was there at 7:30. They call another friend, Mike Terpstra, who last saw Steve at 10:00 p.m. at Grove Junior High with Pete Rachowsky. They took off, and he doesn’t know where. Two days later, on the twelfth, Steve’s father tells the police Steve has returned and they’ll handle the situation with a physician.

Steve goes back to his part-time job at the public library, where a lot of his friends work. He’s a page, restacking books. Adam and another friend, Jim, work on the computers. Joe Russo is a janitor. But the next week, on March 17, Pete Rachowsky comes in. He has a court date the next day for possession of drugs, and he knows now where the information came from.

Pete corners Steve in the library. It’s eight o’clock. The library has mostly cleared out. Pete is tall, reddish-brown hair, on fire. “For less than an ounce, I could get people to take care of you,” he says.

“Leave me alone,” Steve says, according to a complaint he files with the police. He’s scared of Pete, wants this all on record. Pete steps closer, backs him against a wall. “I could have your house burned down. Easy enough to throw a brick through your window.”

In June, at the end of his senior year, Steve’s parents don’t include his baby picture and a congratulatory note from the family in his yearbook. Joe Russo’s parents do this, and Adam’s parents, etc., but Steve’s parents stopped filling in his “School Days” scrapbook years ago. They’re afraid of their son.

Steve slits his wrists for graduation. And he sells all his stuff first, just like before his first suicide attempt. Always planning these things ahead of time. Adam gets Steve’s bass for almost nothing, his Led Zep tablature and amp.

Steve lives, though, again, and what he graduates to is the group home, Mary Hill Residence in Chicago, run by Thresholds. This will become the worst period of his life.

But he can’t get in right away. He has to turn eighteen first, in August, so he spends the summer living at home, working at Dominick’s, a restaurant, twenty hours a week. His job history: three Halloweens working as a monster in a haunted house, three summers as a ride attendant at Pirate’s Cove, three months as a cashier at Toys R Us, two months at McDonald’s, two days at 7-11. Six months as a bagger at Jewel. His sister, Susan, is living at home, too, working as a secretary, like their mother. Steve has trouble getting up in the morning, won’t clean his room, fights with his mom about this and is hospitalized again August 2 through 5 at Alexian, then dumped back home again, like human garbage.