March 14, 2008
Gary Davidson
Public Information Officer

STUDENTS FACING CHARGES OF CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER 

Volusia County Sheriff’s investigators have filed felony complaint affidavits against three DeLand Middle School students for plotting to shoot classmates and then kill themselves. The three have been removed from the school since the plot was uncovered. All three, two boys and a girl, are 13-years-old and in 7^th-grade at the school. According to witness statements, at least one of the three had been trying to get a gun. However, those efforts failed and investigators found no evidence that the three had access to weapons or the means to carry out an attack. Still, Sheriff’s investigators took the threats so seriously that they filed criminal complaint affidavits Friday afternoon charging the three with conspiracy to commit murder.

Authorities first learned of the plot last week, after receiving reports of disturbing threats being made by Austin Mohr in instant messages he wrote to another teen who had contacted him through his page on the social networking web site, MySpace.com. Mohr posed as a 19-year-old boy on his page, which features satanic references, a picture of a tombstone and other disturbing images and admiration for the two shooters responsible for the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. In the instant messages, Mohr directed his rage at two students in particular, but also made general threats to lock the cafeteria doors during one of the lunch periods and shoot everyone in sight. “Everyone will pay for what they did to me,” wrote Mohr, who claimed he was being teased and picked on at school. “They will all die along with me.” Mohr sent instant messages to another teen stating: “I will kill every person I see. ….The massacre will happen soon.” 

One of the teens was so disturbed by the messages that she sent them to a family member, who contacted the Sheriff’s Office at about 10:15 p.m. on March 5. Without a last name, deputies had to do some investigating to identify Mohr. They tracked him down at his home in Orange City at around 1 a.m. on March 6 and ended up taking him into custody for a mental health evaluation. Mohr told deputies that he wrote the messages to scare people. With assistance from school officials, investigators discovered that two other 7^th-graders -- Tyler Christian and Charlene Russell -- had been openly talking about helping Mohr carry out his plans. Another witness told investigators that Mohr had recently asked him if he could get a gun, but the other boy told Mohr he wasn’t able to get one. Christian and Russell also were taken for mental health evaluations after the plot was uncovered. On Friday afternoon, the Sheriff’s Office’s lead investigator in the case, Trever Henderson, delivered complaint affidavits to the State Attorney’s Office charging all three with conspiracy to commit murder. Circuit Court Judge C. McFerrin Smith III issued pick-up orders for the three students, which charged them with conspiracy to commit murder.

Early Friday evening, all three students were located and taken into custody. The students have been transported to the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Daytona Beach.