‘Texas shooting suspect wanted to kill himself too’
WASHINGTON: Dimitrios Pagourtzis planned to commit suicide after the shooting spree in which he gunned down nine fellow students and a teacher at his Santa Fe school in Texas, but lost his nerve in the end and gave himself up, authorities said.
The 17-year-old gunman has been charged with capital murder, which could get him the death penalty if convicted. He is being held in solitary confinement. Pagourtzis, who made a brief appearance in court on Friday evening, told investigators that he spared students he liked.
“He did not shoot students he liked so he could have his story told,” a probable cause affidavit filed in the local Galveston County court stated.
The shooting suspect used a shotgun and a .38 revolver belonging to his father, which he smuggled into school under a long trench coat.
His choice of apparel did not arouse suspicion despite the warm temperature because he was known to wear it often. “He gave himself up and admitted that he didn’t have the courage to commit suicide,” Texas gov- ernor George Abbott said at a news conference.
The governor confirmed that nine victims were students of the school, and the tenth a teacher. Ten others, including a police officer assigned to the school, were wounded.
Law enforcement officers recovered explosives — pipe bombs, pressure cooker bombs and molotov cocktails — left by the gunman. Some of the devices were found on the school campus, and others were recovered from his car, home and the trailer he assembled them at.
While Pagourtzis’s motivation remains unclear, posts on his social media accounts included photographs of a custom-made tee-shirt with ‘Born to Kill’ emblazoned across the front.