Capitol Hill Mass Murderer Sentenced

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No Easy Explanations Offered About Capitol Hill Shootings

Kyle Aaron Huff didn't just snap, and it wasn't drugs or a neurological illness that drove him to murder six people and wound two others.

If anything, a panel of experts found, there are no easy explanations for why the 28-year-old Huff committed one of the city's worst mass murders at a Capitol Hill home in March, shooting and killing people he had met at a rave after-party gathering just hours earlier.

Monday, in the gymnasium at the Miller Community Center, the Boston professor who led a small group of experts in studying the Capitol Hill killings spoke to a group of perhaps 60 people about what they found.

"The object here was to try and understand why it happened," said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston and a noted expert on mass murders.

The group's report was released Monday, and though it provided no ready answers, it did reveal some new details about how Huff spent his time before the murders. For example, Huff apparently sought out information on serial murders; skinheads; Columbine High School, where a massacre took place in 1999; and the drug Ecstasy. Traces of these searches were found in the computer at the apartment Huff shared with his twin brother, Kane Huff.

The report also revealed a 2002 incident in which a Montana schoolmate of the brothers' shot and killed his parents before committing suicide.

"It is possible that the murder-suicide provided a model for Kyle Huff's search for a solution to his own personal problems," the report notes.

And the report suggests that rather than the murders being random, Huff sought out ravers as his victims. "He clearly targeted, stalked, hunted the rave community," Fox said.

Just after 7 a.m. on Saturday, March 26, Huff, 28, walked up to the home at 2112 E. Republican St. and began his murderous spree. Those killed were Jeremy Robert Martin, 26; Suzanne Thorne, 15; Jason Travers, 32; Justin Schwartz, 22; Melissa Moore, 14; and Christopher Williamson, 21.

Huff likely planned his rampage for days, if not weeks, the panel concluded. But he waited several hours while at the party before he went for his guns, suggesting he felt some ambivalence. Etching the word "NOW" in front of the house may have represented to Huff that he needed to take action, Fox said.

He also had chances to shoot several more people as he prowled through the house, pumping the shotgun to eject unspent shells but not pulling the trigger.

"It's as if it just didn't bring him the kind of satisfaction that he had hoped," Fox said.

Family and friends of victims and survivors of the shootings were among the people who attended Monday's presentation.

"I already knew this. It's just formal now for all of you, reporters and the media," said Kyle Moore, who memorialized his daughter, Melissa, by tattooing her face above his heart. "But (the report) kinds of helps put an end to it."

The report noted that because Huff committed suicide, the investigation of the murders was legally closed.

"Yet, for many who were connected intimately or indirectly to the tragedy, the case was far from understood," the panelists wrote in the report released Monday.

In an effort to define something so inexplicable, police Chief Gil Kerlikowske sought out Fox, who has written several books on murder and mass murder. With three other experts, Fox sought to understand the reasons behind the slayings.

The report notes that while Huff remained essentially a stranger in Seattle, defined by his violent actions, in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont., the killings were seen as completely out of character by those who knew him. His friends and family there described him as quiet and kind.

But even there, if not an outcast, neither he nor his brother was a part of any groups. In high school, the two favored long hair and long, black coats. They participated in no school activities and didn't submit photos for their senior yearbook.

When Kane Huff decided to move to Seattle, Kyle Huff followed. But the panel concluded Huff never formed a network of friends in his new community and may have sought out the rave community for companionship. But, the report notes, Huff really didn't fit in there, either.

The panelists paint a portrait of Kyle Huff as a young man frustrated in his life -- unable to keep a job, make friends in his new community or get a girlfriend.

It appears he initially sought out ravers for companionship because of his interest in music. But when Huff found that he couldn't fit in, and that his beliefs clashed with the drug using and sexually charged rave culture, he may have channeled his frustrations about his own inadequacies into an obsession with the rave community.

"He started focusing, obsessing. In his mind, it's all the rave community. He had to be the hero, someone who would stand up" and fight something that was bad for society, Fox said during Monday's presentation.

"Clearly, the rave community was a scapegoat," Fox said.

At the same time, the report notes, there were no red flags that either friends or family saw before the shootings took place.

Kerlikowske said the report also helped police recognize improvements needed in how they communicate with victims' families in tragedies as major as the Huff shootings. He said some in this case felt they weren't kept informed.

He said the department now places more emphasis on dealing with victims' families and keeping consistent contact with them.

Danette Will, a mother of a 20-year-old man who was at the party when the shootings began, asked Fox how the report would benefit the community.

"What is this going to do for us? What is this going to do for the region?" Will asked.

In an interview, she said that even without solid answers about Huff, commissioning the report was important.

"I don't think we can ever stop asking why," she said.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/..._report18.html