Girl Who Went On Elementary School Shooting Spree To 'Liven Up The Day' Denied Parole

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Schoolyard Killer Denied Parole

San Diego, California - Despite pleading with commissioners Tuesday, a woman who shot up a San Carlos Elementary school 26 years ago was denied parole.

The three-member parole board at the California Institution for Women said Brenda Spencer, 42, is still a risk to society. Board members called her crime "cruel and callous."

In one of the nation's first high-profile school shootings, Spencer, then 16, fired a shotgun at Cleveland Elementary School, killing school Principal Burton Wragg, custodian Mike Suchar and injuring eight children. She was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

"I feel very deeply sorry I did it," Spencer said. "I didn't have a right to do that to those people. I don't just waste my time in here sitting around. I go through therapies because I don't want anything this horrible to happen again."

Spencer was denied parole at hearings in 1993 and 2001. She will be up for parole again in one to five years.

At her 2001 parole hearing, Spencer claimed for the first time that her violence grew out of an abusive home life in which her father beat and sexually abused her for years.

None of that information was presented at her trial.

In 1979, Spencer told a reporter she had shot up the school to "liven up the day. Nobody likes Mondays."

Her explanation prompted the Irish singer Bob Geldof and his band, the Boomtown Rats, to write and record the song, "I Don't Like Mondays."

On Tuesday, Spencer said her father has visited her regularly in prison, but refused to talk to her about the abuse.