EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Kip Kinkel, the 17-year-old who
filled his journal with rage, self-loathing and fantasies of violence,
was sentenced to nearly 111 years in prison Wednesday for gunning down
his parents and going on a rampage in his high school cafeteria that
left two students dead. Kinkel will not be entitled to parole,
meaning unless the governor commutes his sentence, he will die behind
bars for the attack at Thurston High School in Springfield. After
hearing days of wrenching statements from victims' relatives and many
of the 25 people wounded, Judge Jack Mattison said it was more
important to make the victims feel safe than to try to rehabilitate
Kinkel. Before the sentence was issued, Kinkel read an apology from a
small sheet of white paper.

``I have spent days trying to figure out what I want to say.
I have crumpled up dozens of pieces of paper and disregarded
even more ideas. I have thought about what I could say that might make
people feel just a little bit better. But I have come to the
realization that it really doesn't matter what I say. Because
there is nothing I can do to take away any of the pain and
destruction I have caused. I absolutely loved my parents and
had no reason to kill them. I had no reason to dislike, kill or try
to kill anyone at Thurston. I am truly sorry that this has happened.
These events have pulled me down into a state of deterioration
and self-loathing that I didn't know existed. I am very sorry for
everything I have done and for what I have become.''

He was angry at his parents, and misdirected anger toward classmates,
and now turns the anger inward. When the receptors in neural pathways
are clogged up with excess neurotransmitters, (i.e. toxicosis
caused by the repressed anger), nerve impulses are diverted and thinking
becomes distorted--delusional. Most people who misdirect anger as he did
at the school have no idea why they are doing so or have some deluded reason.
And when he killed his parents he didn't know why. Of course the victims,
and/or their families, must have their anger at Kip, but Kip
could be rehabilitated if given the chance to redirect his anger.

Experience is laid down in tree like patterns in branching neurons, and
I expect some of the branches where memories of childhood interactions with his
parents were clogged up, so he was not clear why he did it. He was acting out
some fantasy. Fantasies (and scary dreams) might be said to be distorted
re-creations of early trauma, during which neurons detox the neurochemicals
that store repressed anger.

These incidents are why I focus on my prison project.
Ellie