Sword wielding teen kills mom before being gunned down by police (Huron, SD)

[krispos42]

This story is just one of those weird ones. I used to live there. I heard about it earlier, but didn't get around to posting it in LBN soon enough.

HURON, S.D. (AP) -- Police are trying to figure out why a sword wielding teenager killed his mother and injured three others Friday before being gunned down by officers.

"We don't have any background or any events leading up to the assault this morning that would give any indication of a motive," Huron Police Chief Doug Schmitt said Friday.

When officers arrived at the home just before 6 a.m., they found the attacker's 14-year-old sister, Rebekah Gilchrist, with several cuts to her lower arms and hands.

The officers then spotted 16-year-old Josh Gilchrist wielding a long sword that Schmitt described as "something you'd probably see in an ancient knight type movie."

Schmitt said the boy started swinging the sword and struck one of the officers several times before the others fired multiple shots and killed the attacker.

Police in the home then found the dead body of the boy's mom, 49-year-old mom Betty Gilchrist, and an injured foreign exchange student, who was treated and released from Huron Regional Medical Center.

<more>

I heard the foreign exchange student was Russian, and he was the one that called 911. Betty Gilchrist was the children's librarian at the local library.

Such a tragedy. Huron is a very quiet place to live, with a very low crime rate. IIRC there has not been a murder there in nearly 20 years. Not bad for a place with 12k people in it.

[andrewcorbin20]

1. Wow:(

That's very unfortunate. I wonder what the motive was. Maybe it was jealousy, because of the exchange student. But then again, he would've killed the exchange student if he felt like he was taking his place. Hmm.

[jobycom]

3. WHo knows? Might not be a motive, might be mental illness.

When I was a teenager in Mississippi, back in the early 80s, there was a family of four killed with a sledgehammer--on Thanksgiving, IIRC--by an older foster brother/son of the family. The brother was schizophrenic, and believed demons had possessed his family. The family was close to my best friend, and I had met the daughter a couple of times. Plus, I had (still have) a schizophrenic brother, who may have tried to kill me twice.

Incidentally, Brett Favre would have known this family, I think. The daughter would have been in his grade, IIRC, and at his school.

[andrewcorbin20]

6. true

it very well could be a mental illness. well, if you call crazy, mentally ill

[MADem]

2. Can you IMAGINE what that exchange student must be thinking and feeling?

Jeez, thousands of miles from home, English as a second language...what are the odds that the kid would end up in "Whack House"--in every sense of the word???

The poor dead woman probably arranged for the exchange student because her odd sword collecting child didn't have many friends...what a ghastly situation all around, for the father and daughter and the exchange student.

[WinkyDink]

4. Sounds like drugs.

[bperci108]

11. Exactly what I was thinking; BUT the kind prescribed by the Psychiatrist.

Not the kind found on the street. :(

How many kids have "gone 'round the bend" after being given psychoactive drugs designed for, and tested only on, adults?

Prozac, Paxil, etc...

[WinkyDink]

12. Yes, the SRI's.

[High Plains]

17. Police said no sign of drugs or narcotics...

...I live in this town. This kid was behaving psychotically in the days before this happened.

[GreenZoneLT]

5. Police training maybe needs a look

I know they're trained to stop violence, not fight fair, but whatever happened to smacking somebody in the head with a night stick before you shoot them? If he had time to hit the cop with it "several times," you'd think the cop would have time to bust his noggin for him.

Oh, well, shouldn't criticize what you didn't see.

I personally don't see what's tragic about a murder in a small town with little crime, compared to one in a big city ridden with crime. Either way, somebody lost a relative.

[MadHound]

7. Night Stick vs Sword

Sorry, but sword wins every time. A night stick doesn't have the reach of a sword, and not every cop(in fact most cops) aren't Barney Bad Asses with the Ninja Nighstick Grip. Huron sounds like a small, relatively peaceful little town, so they probably don't have much in the way of riot gear, including those riot shields, which is what was needed, walk in with two interlocking shields and pin the kid against the wall.

A tragedy all the way around.

[RC]

8. Huh? You don't see the tragedy of murder in a small town because

there is crime in big cities? Eliminate crime by killing the criminal is ok then?
There are better ways than violence to handle most situations and this was one of them. 14 year olds don't deserve to die.
He obviously had some problems. Subdue him,, take him in and find out what they were. Killing is usually finale and can't be undone if a mistake is made.

[krispos42]

14. No, you save somebody's life by killing the criminal

It is entirely possible that the injure cop had, in trying to dodge an edged weapon, been backed into a corner or tripped and fallen over something and was about to be run through or slashed.

Given a change, the cops would have pepper sprayed this kid's ass and cuffed him. I have to assume it happened too fast and two close for anything but lethal force to work. It's not like Huron has a violent crime problem, especially at 6am. The bars close at 2am so the drunks were long in bed.

The way I heard it from my ex, who's father (may he rot in Hell) has a line in on the police department, the Russian exchange student called 911 from the basement thinking there was an intruder in the house killing and maiming people. The police would have responded as fast as possible to stop any more killings.

I've seen on "World's Wildest Police Videos" a few times the case of a guy in I think San Diego. He was on a street with a ninja sword. The guy was mental, something about demons posessing him or everybody else or whatever.

With no crimes actually in progress, the police took their time subduing the nutjob. First they tried pepper spray, then beanbag rounds from a shotgun, then they finally sprayed him down with a high-pressure firehose, pinned him against a wall with a ladder, and swarmed in and arrested him.

If he had been in the process of running through a crowd slashing people, the guy would have been dead almost immediately.

The Huron cops almost certainly would have had their guns drawn going into the situation. Switching to non-lethal ordinance would be impossible if they were rushed as they entered the house. They would have had to holster their pistols, unsnapped and removed their pepper spray, hosed the kid down and let it take effect, all while on the move and trying to keep track of a yard of edged steel. That's a lot to ask for when your partner is being sliced by a sword and probably crying out in pain.

[Ian David]

9. I blame Tom Hanks

Mazes and Monsters (1982) (TV)

Directed by Steven Hilliard Stern

Writing credits Rona Jaffe (novel)
Tom Lazarus (teleplay)

<snip>

So bad it's good, 7 September 2004
Author: dannym-3 from Austin, Texas

Mazes and Monsters was the made-for-TV special at the head of the anti-Dungeons-And-Dragons movement, spearheaded by Patricia Pulling who blamed the game for her son's suicide the same year. I know people whose parents confiscated and threw out/burned all their gear as a result of this film, which suggests such games cause loving, sensitive kids to go insane and suicidal.

For a made-for-TV, it's pretty well done, despite the fact that its premise is rather, well, inflamatory. It's wholly designed to make parents fear their kid's imagination. Still fun to watch and laugh at. Although it launched Tom Hank's movie career, I've heard he won't acknowledge having made it.

More:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/

[keithjx]

10. I was thinking

this was another manifestation of Harry Potter's influence on our young. Yours was better though....
:thumbsup:
KJ

[BreweryYardRat]

13. Great. Those of us who collect replica arms are about to get shat on. AGAIN.

DU's got enough common sense not to, but the majority of the public is going to assume that the kid wouldn't have acted like he did if he got into something "wholesome" like the track team rather than collecting swords. Never mind that whatever issues/mental problems he'd had would have surfaced no matter what he did, and he'd just have gone after people with something else.

At least it was a sword, and not a polearm. I guaran-damn-tee you that if he'd had a polearm, not only would his mom have been killed, but the sister, the exchange student, and the cop would have died as well.

[krispos42]

15. C'mon, this is South Dakota

The waiting period to buy a gun is only as long as it takes your credit card to clear! You can legally drive with a loaded firearm in the car! They issue pistol permits like they're going out of style!

[krispos42]

16. Story update

http://www.plainsman.com/main.php?story_id=11391&page=23

<snip>
Schmitt said police officers responded to a 911 call regarding an unknown problem at 5:48 a.m.

They were met at the door by a female with severe lacerations to her lower arms and hands, he said.

“Moments later, officers encountered a male in the home wielding a sword,” Schmitt said. “The assailant began swinging the sword, striking a Huron police officer multiple times.

“Other officers at the scene fired on the suspect as he continued to attack the officers,” he said. “The suspect was subsequently shot and unfortunately died at the scene.”
<snip>
Schmitt said multiple shots were fired by two officers, but he didn’t immediately know how many rounds were involved.

“It started in the home and came just outside on the front steps of the home,” he said.
<snip>
The last officer-involved shooting in Huron occurred in the spring of 1982, when Sgt. Tom Callies and Officer Andy Larson responded to a domestic disturbance call in southeast Huron.

Callies fired a round at the assailant, Steve Bittner, but missed. Callies later died of a knife wound, and Bittner was sentenced to life in prison. Larson recovered from knife injuries.

The Friday incident was the third homicide in the Huron area since October.

Elroy Wieting, 53, the owner of The Country Bar and Grille in Alpena, died on the opening day of pheasant hunting season after collapsing while trying to break up a fight.

Paul Burns, 24, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault and disorderly conduct, and his father, Roger Burns, 49, has pleaded not guilty to simple assault and disorderly conduct. The Missouri men will go on trial separately in March and April.

Tiffany Joseph, 23, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the November stabbing death of Danny Foolbull, 22, in their Huron apartment. <end>