Locking Up The Voices

A teen killer is sent away for life. Was justice done?

In April 1998, one month before Kipland Kinkel embarked on a shooting rampage in Springfield, Ore., that killed his father, mother and two students and wounded 25 others, he yelled out in class, "Goddam these voices in my head!" He was disciplined for swearing, but no one paid much mind to those voices.

The voices were pretty much ignored again last week when an Oregon judge sentenced Kinkel, 17, to 111 years imprisonment with no possibility of parole. He had pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder, and his sentence was the severest penalty possible for a juvenile in Oregon.

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