CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — The 18-year-old who shot and killed three students in an Ohio high school cafeteria last year has been given three life sentences -- at a hearing today where he taunted relatives of the victims, and wore a T-shirt that read "killer."
T.J. Lane had pleaded guilty last month. Investigators have said he admitted to the shooting but that he said he didn't know why he did it.
He smiled and smirked throughout today's sentencing, including when four relatives of the victims spoke. At the start of the hearing, he calmly unbuttoned his blue dress shirt to reveal the T-shirt reading "killer," which a prosecutor noted was similar to one he wore during the shooting.
At one point, he suddenly swiveled in his chair toward where his own family members and those of the slain teens sat, cursing at them and raising his middle finger toward them.
The mother of one victim called Lane "a pathetic excuse for a human being," and wished him "an extremely slow, torturous death."
Prosecutors say lane took a pistol and a knife to the school and fired 10 shots at a group of students in the cafeteria. He'd been at the school waiting for a bus to the alternative school he attended.
Cox Media Group
