Teen laid out Texas attack plans in journals — officials

SANTA FE (AP) — The Texas student charged in the shooting at Santa Fe High School described planning the attack in private journals, including a plan to kill himself, posted an image on Facebook of a “Born to Kill” shirt and used his father’s shotgun and pistol in the rampage that left 10 dead and 10 wounded, authorities said on Friday.

A motive was not immediately clear, but Gov. Greg Abbott said Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, wrote about planning the attack in journals on his computer and in his cellphone that police have obtained. That was inconsistent with the portrait painted by his friends — a reserved young man, an athlete

Pagourtzis who had discussed wanting to own guns but did not talk of killing people.

It may have been what Pagourtzis hoped would happen, as according to an affidavit filed on Friday when he was charged with capital murder, he told investigators that he did not shoot students he liked “so he could have his story told.”

“Not only did he want to commit the shooting but he also wanted to commit suicide after the shooting,” Abbott said, adding that Pagourtzis told authorities he “didn’t have the courage” to take his own life.

Pagourtzis was held without bond in the Galveston County jail on the capital murder charges, county sheriff Henry Trochesset said.

Abbott said the two guns used in the attack were owned legally by his father. It was not clear whether the father knew his son had taken them.

The governor also said explosive devices including a Molotov cocktail had been found in the suspected shooter’s home and a vehicle as well as around the school and nearby.

Abbott said at a news conference that “unlike Parkland, unlike Sutherland Springs, there were not those types of warning signs.”

He was referring to the Feb. 14 school shooting in Florida and one in November inside a church in a town near San Antonio.

Abbott said the early investigation showed no prior criminal history for Pagourtzis — no arrests and no confrontations with law enforcement.