JONESBORO "No One Will Ever Forget"
I don't think any of us will ever be the same," says Connie Tolbert, who has worked for 15 years as a secretary at Westside Schools in Jonesboro, Ark., site of one of the most disturbing crimes in recent memory. Last March Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, went to school armed with three rifles, seven handguns and nearly 500 rounds of ammunition. They were angry, it was said, because Mitchell had been spurned by a girl he had a crush on. After Andrew pulled a fire alarm, the pair methodically opened fire as their classmates exited the school. One teacher and four students were killed, and 10 more were wounded. To the nation, it was both a singularly horrific crime and one in a series of student shootings that plagued the 1997-98 school year, something to be simultaneously sickened and puzzled by. To the people of Jonesboro, it was also something one had to live with. "We talk about it all the time." says Tolbert. "We go on, but no one will ever forget." The school is filled with reminders, including a Christmas display of five blue-and-white angels and the presence of a police officer who routinely patrols the hallways.
Mitchell and Andrew are currently in state custody at a youth detention center, having been convicted of the killings in juvenile court. Under Arkansas law, children 13 years and younger cannot be tried as adults; the boys could be free by age 18. Mitchell Wright, the widower of the slain teacher, is pushing the state legislature to change the juvenile-justice code.
The boys stole their weapons from Andrew's grandfather, Doug Golden. "We feel we were victims too," he says of his family; he believes most people feel the same way. "Every day somebody comes up and says, 'I want to say something and I don't know how.' They don't blame us for what happened." Golden raised his grandson to be a hunter and has no regrets. "In teaching a kid of any age how to hunt," he says, "you are not preparing him to go out and kill people. You're teaching him how a gun is supposed to be used, not abused. It's not an instrument of violence." --Reported by Julie Grace
SEINFELD The Retirement Years
Probably no one since Richard Nixon has got as much attention for quitting as Jerry Seinfeld did when he announced late last year that he was self-canceling his long-running sitcom. After an avalanche of magazine covers (including TIME's) and relentless promotion by NBC, the series finally ended on May 14 with a 75-minute episode that saw Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer sent off to jail. Though critical reception was mixed, the show was the highest-rated entertainment program of the 1997-98 season (and 37th on the all-time list).