Two students charged in the plan to orchestrate a shooting at Etowah High School had a racial and albeit motives, as new details in the case show.
Former students Alfred Dupree, 19, and Victoria McCurley, 18, pleaded guilty to six counts of attempted murder on Friday (May 10). The teens originally entered not guilty pleas in June 2018 after they were arrested for plotting the school shooting in 2017.
While some of the details of the case were sealed throughout the trial, prosecutors highlighted the teen’s racial motive, plans to kill special education students and how they wanted to set a “record” for the mass shooting.
According to the Cherokee and Tribune Ledger News, Dupree and McCurley had five students and one teacher on their “kill list” found in a journal where they detailed their plan. Their writings included racial slurs with the reported intent to kill all of the school’s black students with swastikas and slurs intended for people with disabilities.
Dupree and McCurley took both special education classes and regular classes. The names of the five students on their kill list were classmates in their special education classes.
The pair were arrested in October after a tip from a relative unveiled their “personal journal/diary, a homemade incendiary device, which was described as a flammable substance, and an undetermined powder (sic) substance,” the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office previously told Patch in January.
McCurley also told investigators on Friday the entire plan was a joke that later turned into a reality. “During the writing (of the pair’s attack plan), it wasn’t serious, but then it escalated to being serious,” she testified.
Meanwhile, Dupree mapped out his fascination with school shootings, noting how at 13/14, he became interested in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. He also testified how he wanted to “get our numbers up higher than Las Vegas,” referring to the 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people and left 422 wounded.
In addition to using armed weapons, the teens also wanted to “throw explosives and smoke bombs at people inside.”
Their sentencing will take place today (May 13) before Cherokee County Superior Court Judge Ellen McElyea at 1:30 PM ET.