Cherokee teens indicted in attack plan

2 students allegedly had hit list; family says girl was bullied.

Two 17-year-old students were indicted Tuesday on charges that they planned to ignite an incendiary device at their Cherokee County high school in an attempt to kill students and teachers there.

Victoria McCurley and Alfred Dupree were charged with six counts each of conspiracy to commit murder and other charges related to building an incendiary device in October, officials said. Among the charges were that they possessed a destructive device.

The teens are accused of drawing maps of Etowah High School and writing a list of six names they wanted to target “by means of fire and explosives,” according to the indictment.

They are both charged with possession of a destructive device.

But McCurley’s friends and family, who refer to her as “Gabi,” told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she would never go so far as to hurt people at her high school.

Instead, she is the victim, they say, of bullying and neglect. Her dark social media posts were cries for help and her plans to hurt others were a mask for her desire to hurt herself, said Mandy Thomas, a family member of McCurley’s on her father’s side.

“Gabi is lost in a whirlwind of confusion and sadness,” Thomas said. “She was on Facebook begging people to listen to her.”

Thomas and her niece, Haley Carver, agree that McCurley suffered from mental health issues exacerbated by the deaths of loved ones and caregivers.

Carver said she grew up with McCurley and knew her better than anyone.

“She is just a lost kid,” Carver said. “I don’t even think she would have went through with it in all honesty.”

An only child, McCurley was raised by her grandmother and father after her mother died suddenly of an aneurysm, Thomas said. Her grandmother died about five years ago and her father, Wade McCurley, was sentenced to prison in 2015. He is currently incarcerated at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon, according to prison records. The 37-year-old’s earliest release date is October 2020.

“Gabi needs help, maybe antidepressants or a counselor,” Thomas told the AJC. “She needs a lot.”

Thomas said issues with addiction plagued Wade McCurley, who was convicted of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct.

“In hindsight, I wished I would have tried a little harder for her,” Thomas said. “I wished I could’ve done more.”

Rumors circling around the time of Victoria McCurley’s arrest said she and co-defendant Dupree planned to attack during Homecoming Week.

Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds previously said the attack, if carried out, would have been on the scale of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, when two teenagers went on a shooting spree in Littleton, Colorado. They killed 13 people and wounded more than 20 others before turning the guns on themselves. While authorities never determined with certainty the teens’ motives, they said the bullying may have been a factor.