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'This will live with me forever': Teen who hosted party where Cameron Brand shot 2 dead recalls ordeal

'This happened at my house. I just wanted everybody to have a good time. This will live with me forever,' said the teen

BAY ST LOUIS, MISSISSIPPI: A teenager who hosted a party where two high schoolers were gunned down and four people were injured has revealed the horror that unfolded at her Mississippi home. The girl, 18, who did not want to be named, said she was reluctant to host the party but did so as nobody else planned one. The two victims have been identified as Haeleigh Stamper, 16, and De’Arreis “DD” Smith, 18.

Cameron Everett Brand, 19, of Pass Christian, was arrested after he opened fire as 60 to 70 students from Bay High School in Bay St Louis and Hancock High School in Kiln were celebrating on Sunday, April 30. He fled the scene after shooting dead two teenagers and injuring four, one of whom is now critical. Brand has been arrested and charged with four counts of aggravated assault and two counts of murder, and is being held in a Mississippi jail without bail.

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'This will live with me forever'

"He just started shooting, and left without remorse," the girl who hosted the party said of Brand, according to Sun Herald. She and her mother said they were monitoring the partygoers and did not serve any alcohol. They said some of the students brought their own and had been drinking. They first realized something was wrong when they heard gunshots. The girl said her friends grabbed her and pulled her into the woods, located behind her house. 

She saw someone laying beside her mother's car after the shooting and was going to give him CPR, but someone told her he was dead. "We were having a good time until he started shooting," she said, adding that the gunman "just got in his car and left and went home' after 'he shot six innocent people."

"This happened at my house," she added. "I just wanted everybody to have a good time. This will live with me forever." She said she has canceled a graduation party she had planned to host. "Everybody expects me to be OK and I can't be OK," she said.

Her mother, who was also present at the scene, said, "All I can remember seeing is these four children, laying on the ground, shot. While a motive for the shooting has not been determined, records revealed Brand had several other run-ins with the law, and was slapped with charges like carrying a concealed weapon, possession of marijuana and domestic violence by sexual assault, and a charge for violating a protection order in the past.

'Now parties and family gatherings are also places to fear'

Social media users reacted to the shooting, with one user saying, "It’s the guns. It’s always the guns." "Clearly in America, murder is against the law, yet he just committed it. Maybe it is not lack of laws, but our lack of punishment that is the issue," one user said, while another wrote, "Another reason for other countries to add themselves to the travel warnings/bans to America".

"So now parties and family gatherings are also places to fear. Thank you @GOP," one user said, while another wrote, "I’ll say it again, he did because he could. The government gave him permission and the gun to it." "I used to spend my tourist dollars in the US not anymore," said one user. "Where did the shooter get the gun? They’re supposed to lock them up in a gun safe! Where’s the parents?" wrote a user.

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.