Columbine High School shooting admirer who plotted to go on a shooting rampage sentenced to life imprisonment
A woman from Geneva, Illinois, Lindsay Souvannarath, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday, on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. Souvannarath reportedly is an admirer of the perpetrators of the massacre.
The 26-year-old woman had plotted to go on a Valentine's Day shooting rampage, which involved opening fire at a mall on Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2015, reports state.
Souvannarath had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder last year and a judge on Friday ruled that she will not have any chance at getting parole for almost a decade, Canada's CBS News reported.
The outlet added that during a sentencing hearing on Monday, Souvannarath revealed that she had an accomplice in the massacre plot, James Gamble. The woman reportedly met Gamble online and they got along on their twisted fascination with the Columbine massacre.
Souvannarath, in 2015, wrote: "I was to be his Eric Harris he was to be my Dylan Klebold." The woman was referring to the teenagers who killed 12 classmates and a teacher in Littleton, Colorado. They wounded 21 additional people, and three more were injured while they were attempting to escape the school. The perpetrators later killed themselves in the school's library after exchanging gunfire with the police officials.
The attack was deemed highly planned by the authorities as it involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters rushing to the scene and propane tanks converted to bombs and placed in the school's cafeteria.
She was caught at the Halifax airport. A senior police official told AFP said that Souvannarath confessed after she was arrested at the Halifax airport and that she had prepared a number of pronouncements to be posted on Twitter after her death.
"Strange feeling to meet someone and almost immediately know you want to die with them," Souvannarath added, according to the New York Post.
The Nova Scotia supreme court Justice Peter Rosinksi, during the ruling, said that Souvannarath was a threat to the society and she has not even shown remorse for her plot to kill people.
Justice Rosinksi, when handing down the prison sentence for Souvannarath, on Friday compared the shooting plot to terrorism, according to reports.