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SPOILERS! (Click to view)

This was in The Irish Independent this morning:


US School Killer Sexually Assaulted Girl Hostages Before Shooting Himself



A distraught student after she is reunited with her family outside Platte Canyon High School in Colorado.


A GUNMAN who took six teenage girls hostage at a Colorado high school sexually assaulted his captives before shooting one dead and killing himself as a police Swat team stormed the building.

Duane Morrison, a 53-year-old homeless man, burst into a classroom at the small mountain community school in Bailey, 40 miles south-west of Denver, and took six girls hostage.

He assaulted an unspecified number before shooting one in the head and killing himself as the four-hour stand-off ended in a flurry of gunfire.

The incident brought chilling reminders of the nation's deadliest school shooting 40 miles away at Columbine High School, Denver.

During that April 1999 massacre, two teenage gunmen shot dead 12 students and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves.

Fred Wegener, the county sheriff, whose 16-year-old son was in Platte Canyon High School, Bailey, as Wednesday's drama unfolded, confirmed that Morrison "did traumatise and assault our children".

"The assaults were sexual," he said, adding that the contents of a rucksack Morrison said contained explosives "were sexual in nature".

Local media reported that the camouflage bag contained sex toys.

During negotiations with police, Morrison, who was armed with a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver, released all but two of his hostages.

Mr Wegener said he decided to have the school stormed after learning of the assaults from the freed captives and after Morrison warned that "something would happen".

"The sequence was awful fast," he said of the bloody end to the siege. "As they burst through the door, he fired at the Swat team, shot the female hostage and then shot himself."

Pupils at the school described how Morrison entered the English class around noon and fired a warning shot before ordering students to line up against the blackboard. He tapped those he wanted to leave with his gun.

There was no known link between Morrison and his victim, Emily Keyes (16), whom he shot in the head.

Mr Wegener said the exact motive remained a mystery but the crime had "terrorised" the close-knit commuter town.

"This is something that has changed my school, changed my community," Mr Wegener said.

"My small county's gone."


(Daily Telegraph, London)

Catherine Elsworth

But keeping within the "fright" theme, let me tell you of some very irrational fears I had as a child....

1) Those two freaky aliens on Sesame Street that go "YOP YOP-YOP-YOP YAWWWWWP! YIP YIP YAWWWWP"


2) One time, when I was a small child in Saudi Arabia, I was going into my parents' room (no, it's not what you're thinking -- perverts!) and was frozen in my tracks by the somehow terrifying sight of turtleneck sweaters draped over a chair to dry. For some reason, the long necks looked like something could potentially be living in there -- something like an alien. I mean, just look at it -- it's pure evil!


3) I'm sure this will come as a shock to you, but I was always being exposed to movies that maybe aren't great for, ya know, a six year-old to see, like... Alien!


I mean, does that look like soothing bedtime viewing to you? Yeah, I know some of you like ShellyMC probably watched horror flicks as they nursed on their mommy's milk, but I have always been squeamish when it comes to terror and gore.

4) And this is the one I'm particularly embarrassed about: when I was about eight or nine, Photon Laser Tag was really popular in Houston, and kids were always having birthday/pizza parties there. A family friend took me there one time, and as we entered, I saw two employees dressed in futuristic space fleet jumpsuits standing to either side of the door in some kind of military stance -- "at attention" I believe it's called, and there was that goofy black light glowing everywhere, and I even think there was a smoke machine issuing forth... like, smoke. Oh, and I think some really synth-y, Jean Michel Jarre-type music was playing for added effect. Well, there was something about this melange of futuristic stimuli that fucking freaked me out! I think I made an "I'm about to cry" face and softly said, "I don't wanna go in there -- I wanna go home!" And -- bloop! -- we turned right around, got back in the car, and went somewhere I wouldn't be bombarded by irrational fears.


See, there's kind of a psychological explanation for my pervasive fear of futuristic things. I had a very vivid dream as a child in which a freaky race of futuristic pig-men aliens had taken over and were in our house. Needless to say it scared the fuck outta me. Even as an adult, I used to have interminably long, detailed, repetitive dreams that were set in the future. We don't really know what will happen in the future, which means it's somewhat a symbol of uncertainty, and uncertainty is kind of scary to me. I like to feel secure, confident, and safe. Good surprises are... good, and bad surprises are... not good. So maybe I have futuristic dream sequences when I'm feeling apprehension about something.


What are some irrational fears you had as a child, or what are some you still have?