Disturbing Interview With Teen Accused In Waseca Plot Released
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Recordings of an interview with the Waseca teen accused of plotting to bomb his school and kill his family and fellow students have been released.
WCCO-TV got hold of the recordings Tuesday, and they reveal that 17-year-old John LaDue considered himself to be mentally ill, was enamored with tragedies and wanted to kill as many people as possible in his hometown.
"My plans were to enter [the school] and throw molotov cocktails and pipe bombs and destroy everyone, and then when the SWAT comes I would destroy myself," he told police.
LaDue was charged in May with attempted murder, possessing explosives, and attempting to damage property. Authorities say they foiled LaDue's plot after a woman spotted him acting suspicious around a storage locker. When police searched the locker and his room, they found guns, bomb-making equipment and a 180-page notebook detailing plans to re-create a Columbine-style massacre.
In court last month, LaDue pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder charges, but prosecutors are seeking to try him as an adult.
The recordings of LaDue's interview with police were taped soon after police arrested him in April. In them, he speaks of a YouTube channel on which he uploaded videos of himself detonating home-made bombs. He also repeatedly said he wasn't ever bullied.
"I don't even think I've been bullied in my life," LaDue told police, adding: "I have good parents, I live in a good town, I think I'm just really mentally ill and no one's noticed and I've been trying to hide it."
When asked why he wanted to kill his family, he said that they did nothing wrong.
"I just wanted as many victims as possible," he said.
According to authorities, LaDue's plan was to kill his family first. Then he wanted to start a fire in town to divert first-responders. That's when he'd plotted to set off bombs at his school and start shooting classmates. He then wanted to battle a SWAT team to prove he "wasn't a wimp" and was "willing to fight with equal force."
LaDue had initially planned to carry out this carnage on April 19.
"I wanted it to be in April, because April's my favorite month," he told police, "because that's…the month that all the really bad tragedies happen."
The Columbine High School massacre happened on April 20, 1999.
LaDue said no one knew what he was planning or how he felt. He told officers he might be a sociopath and asked to see a psychiatrist.
In his statement, LaDue also said he had contemplated slipping cyanide to a friend of a friend who'd gotten on his nerves, and he talked about putting a CO2 bomb into meat and tossing it to a small dog. However, he said he never tortured animals.
Last week, LaDue's father said that his son never actually planned to carry out the attack, and that his son has issues the family needs to deal with.
LaDue's attorney is trying to get all the charges dropped because nothing actually happened.
