Copyright 1988 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd. The Toronto StarMay 21, 1988, Saturday, SATURDAY SECOND EDITIONSECTION: NEWS; Pg. A3LENGTH: 378 wordsHEADLINE: Woman shoots 6 at school before committing suicideBYLINE: (REUTER)DATELINE: WINNETKA, IllinoisBODY: WINNETKA, Ill. (Reuter) - A woman who killed one child and critically wounded five others in a shooting spree at a school yesterday took her own life after barricading herself inside a nearby house.Police in this affluent Chicago suburb said Laurie Dann, 30, who was described as having a history of emotional problems, was found shot to death on the second floor of the house where she had held police at bay for more than six hours. Very young children"They were all very young children," Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said at the school. "She just walked into the room, walked past the teacher, indicated the gun was real and started firing at random."You have to ask yourself why. For the life of me I don't know why."Police say Dann entered the school and shot a boy in the washroom. She then entered a Grade 2 classroom, where she pulled a gun, spoke a few words and sprayed the room with shots, wounding five other children ranging in age from 7 to 9.One 8-year-old boy in the classroom died of a bullet wound in the chest.There were about 22 children in the classroom when the shooting started. They dived for cover and those who survived dashed through a door leading to the outside."There was blood all over the classroom and desks knocked over" as the children panicked at one-storey, red-brick Hubbard Woods Elementary School, said policeman John Ceglieski."Kids were hiding under the desk as well as they could," Timm said.Police in neighboring Highland Park said Dann started the day by trying to set a fire at another school, and was stopped at a day-care centre when she tried to enter carrying a can of gasoline.Investigators said she then set fire to the home of a family where she worked as a babysitter. The fire trapped the woman for whom Dann worked and two of her children but they managed to escape through a window.Another child in the family attended Hubbard Woods school but was out on a field trip when the incident occurred.After the shooting at the school Dann fled to a nearby house, where she shot a 20-year-old man who lived there.Neighbors of the family in whose home the rampage began said Dann had recently been told she would lose her job because the family was moving.GRAPHIC: REUTER PHOTO: Two women comfort each other outside Hubbard Woods School. PHOTO: Laurie Dann

Copyright 1988 Times Newspapers Limited The Times (London)May 21 1988, SaturdaySECTION: Issue 63087.LENGTH: 360 wordsHEADLINE: Boy dies as woman goes on rampage; Chicago woman shoots childrenBYLINE: CHARLES BREMNERBODY:(Photograph)Police surrounding a house in the Chicago area, left, where an armed woman, who went on a shooting rampage yesterday, killing one child, and critically wounding five others, barricaded herself in before taking her own life. Parents comforting each other, right, outside the school where Miss Laurie Dann strode into a class of eight-year-olds and started shooting. Witnesses said she had three pistols. She apparently lined the children up against a wall and said: 'Kids, I'm going to teach you something about guns today, ' before opening fire. A police spokesman in Winnetka, Illinois, said: 'She just walked into the room, walked past the teacher, indicated the gun was real and started firing at random.' She shot another child in the corridor on her way out. Miss Dann then ran through a wood into a nearby house in the exclusive Chicago commuter suburb. Four members of a family and their maid escaped after a man of about 20 scuffled with the woman and was shot in the chest. He was critically ill in hospital last night. Three eight-year-old boys and two girls were also in critical condition. An eight-year-old boy died in hospital. Homes in the quiet suburb on the shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago, were evacuated last night as heavily armed police teams took up positions around the house where the woman was thought to have taken refuge. Police said the woman set fire to the house of the family for whom she worked before setting out on her rampage at the Hubbard Woods Elementary School. That family escaped through the basement. Police said it appeared she had become distraught after learning that her employers were about to leave the area. The FBI said Miss Dann, was aged 31, and they issued pictures of her, saying she had been the subject of previous investigations. They gave no details. The school kept all the surviving children in for the rest of the day, giving them counselling to help them cope with their ordeal. Television news showed shocked parents milling around outside the school two hours after the 11am shooting. A spokesman said: 'They don't know if their children were hurt or not.'

Copyright 1988 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd. The Toronto StarMay 22, 1988, Sunday, SUNDAY SECOND EDITIONSECTION: NEWS; Pg. A2LENGTH: 460 wordsHEADLINE: Woman sent poisoned snacks before school shooting spreeBYLINE: (AP)DATELINE: WINNETKA, IllinoisBODY: WINNETKA, Ill. (AP) - The woman who went on a shooting rampage at a school apparently also delivered mysterious containers of juice to several homes and arsenic-laced snacks to a pair of university fraternities, police said yesterday.Three people who ate the snacks at Northwestern University's Alpha Tau Omega became seriously ill and were taken to hospital, Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said. Six other people were treated and released at hospital. "The situation with Laurie has not ended," Timm said.The chief said Laurie Dann, 30, dropped off juice containers at the doors of six homes where she once worked as a babysitter.At one of the homes, the juice carried a note that read, "Love your little sisters. Enjoy."Boy killedOne girl felt ill after sipping the juice and another was taken to hospital as a precaution, Timm said. The juice was being examined last night.The developments added a bizarre twist to the case of Dann, who walked into Hubbard Woods Elementary School and opened fire Friday morning, killing Nicholas Corwin, 8, and wounding five other children. She later wounded a young man at a nearby home, where she holed up before killing herself.Four of the wounded children were listed in critical condition yesterday.Timm was not sure why Dann delivered arsenic-laced snacks to the fraternities, though "she did have a friend at the Northwestern campus."At Dann's Madison, Wis., apartment, Timm said, authorities found a list of people who received the drinks. They also recovered two vials containing a powdered substance.Meanwhile, hundreds of parents and children touched by the tragedy gathered at the school yesterday to discuss the shootings and offer prayers for the victims and for Dann.Police believe Dann became distraught when a family that hired her to babysit said they were leaving this affluent suburb of Chicago. Before the shootings, she tried to set fire Friday to the family's home and another school, police said.They also believe she tried to serve contaminated milk to the family's children.Threatening callsPolice found books about poison in Dann's Madison apartment.Those who knew Dann say her rampage was not a surprise."I had a feeling that this person was about to explode," said Fred Foreman, the county state's attorney. His office was trying to track down Dann for making threatening phone calls to an old boyfriend.Her ex-husband woke up one night in 1986 to find himself bleeding from a stab wound made with an ice pick. He suspected his wife, but police could find no link between her and the stabbing.The couple were separated at the time.Timm said that Dann had been seeing a psychiatrist, but he gave no further details.GRAPHIC: Photo Nicholas Corwin

Copyright 1988 The New York Times Company The New York TimesMay 24, 1988, Tuesday, Late City Final EditionSECTION: Section D; Page 27, Column 1; National DeskLENGTH: 491 wordsHEADLINE: SLAIN BOY BURIED; 'GOD IS WEEPING'BYLINE: APDATELINE: WINNETKA, Ill., May 23BODY:Eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin, slain in a woman's rampage through this Chicago suburb, was buried today after more than 1,000 mourners heard a rabbi say, ''We know that God is weeping.''Later in the day children, teachers, counselors and parents gathered for a memorial service at Hubbard Woods Elementary School, where the child and five of his classmates were shot.It was a gray day that mirrored the community's grief. Gov. James R. Thompson called for tightened handgun-control laws, although he said the public ''is never going to be protected against random, bizarre behavior.'' The youngster was fatally wounded when Laurie Dann, the daughter of a wealthy suburban family, stormed the school and fired on a second-grade classroom. Five students and a man who lived at a nearby house were wounded in the spree, which ended when the 30-year-old woman shot herself to death.Classes Are Canceled''I think the adults will have a harder time letting go than our kids,'' said LaDonna Covelle, whose second-grade son, Mark, and daughter, Jennifer, a third grader, attend the school.Classes were canceled at the school today and half a dozen police officers were outside.''So deep is our sorrow, so great is our loss, that we know that God is weeping,'' said Rabbi Robert Schreibman at Nicholas's funeral service at Temple Jeremiah.''The death of the young is always tragic, but this was so sudden, so swift - it was such an unexpected loss of a wonderful and promising child with so much to give,'' Rabbi Schreibman said.Nicholas was buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie.''Nicky was extremely well liked -loved,'' said Amy Moses, the 29-year-old substitute teacher who was in the classroom when the shooting occurred and tried to disarm Ms. Dann.Before the shooting, Ms. Dann delivered tainted treats to two college fraternities and several homes where she had worked as a baby sitter. The police said no one was seriously injured by the poisoned fruit juice and cereal.Ms. Dann was due to stand trial in Madison, Wis., on charges of shoplifting several women's wigs March 14. She also was being investigated by Federal authorities for making threatening telephone calls in three states to former friends and members of her ex-husband's family.In an interview broadcast tonight, her ex-husband, Russell Dann, said the rampage might have been prevented.''I hired attorneys,'' he said on the ABC-News program ''Nightline.'' ''I hired private detectives. This was the North Shore of Chicago reaching out for help, not just Russell Dann. I'm not saying we got no help, but Friday happened.''He also said that ''on many occasions, we tried to get her arrested,'' but the police did not pursue her case actively enough.The ''Nightline'' host, Ted Koppel, said Mr. Dann volunteered to appear on the program in the hope that he could prevent the repeat of another violent incident like the school shootings.GRAPHIC: Photo of pall-bearers carrying coffin of Nicholas Corwin (AP)

Copyright 1998 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc. Chicago Sun-TimesMay 17, 1998, SUNDAY, Late Sports Final EditionSECTION: SUNDAY NEWS; Pg. 12LENGTH: 1207 wordsHEADLINE: Winnetka not yet ready to forget Laurie DannBYLINE: BY BOB KURSONBODY:The 8-year-olds love to play baseball at Northbrook's Village Green. The park has outfield fences, a raised pitcher's mound, majestic grandstands. And a glorious scoreboard that seems to reach into the center-field heavens.The scoreboard even has a sponsor: Dann Brothers Insurance of Northbrook. To a little leaguer, the sign is a distant target for a mighty home run. To parents in the stands, the Dann name means something entirely different.Ten years ago, Laurie Dann snapped. Flailing against a quicksand of mental illness, the 30-year-old Glencoe baby-sitter loaded three pistols, stormed into Hubbard Woods grade school in Winnetka and opened fire. At children. Eight-year-old Nick Corwin died; five others were shot and seriously wounded. Dann killed herself that night before anyone could ask her why. Ten years later, Winnetka has built a wall of silence around itself, a kind of community gag order. Police won't talk. The principal won't talk. Parents absolutely won't talk. Each labors for politeness in refusing an interview, but there is anger in the rejections. The wound is still fresh on the North Shore, and for a while it seems as if the only place the Dann name isn't damned in public is on that quaint Northbrook scoreboard.Russell Dann almost never talks to the media. He's the owner of Dann Brothers Insurance, the guy who sponsors the scoreboard, the man who once married Laurie Dann. He doesn't like to talk about what Laurie did, either. But where others slam down the phone, he hesitates."You assume I'm getting on with my life because my name's on that scoreboard," Dann says. "But that's an assumption. You don't know if I had anything to do with that. Maybe I voted against that."The subject, nervously, turns to the Bulls, one of Dann's passions. Then, after reflecting on Phil Jackson, Dann reflects on Laurie."What's different after 10 years?" Dann muses. "I mourn for her more than I would have predicted. I've developed compassion for her over the years, more than I would have thought. I've come to feel bad for her. That surprises me."For years after the incident, Dann says, he struggled to find his smile. He went through a woman-hating stage, pushed away special women "because after Laurie, I had no intention of ever getting married." One woman pushed back against Laurie's legacy. Today, she is Russell's wife, the mother of two kids who smile a lot and don't think much about the name Laurie Dann."My life went on," Dann says. "Not instantly; it took years. And it's still a huge, traumatic thing. But you know, I never had much guilt. Not then, not now. In my heart, I truly believe I did everything I could."Current Winnetka Police Chief William Gallagher was the officer responsible for the area around the home Laurie Dann took hostage after her rampage. He is protective of Winnetka, as if responding to a 911 call that has been ringing for a decade. He refuses to talk about the incident because "this is the last thing in the world these people want to see right now."The truth is," Gallagher admits, "I try not to reflect on it, either."Herb Timm was the Winnetka police chief in 1988. He arrived at the school in time to see the principal covered in blood and carrying a wounded child. Timm still can't shake the principal's cry: "There's more in that room."Timm, 55, is now chief of police in Burr Ridge. Time has blunted most of the jagged images that used to play, slide-show style, in his head. The dream, the one in which he rounds a corner and comes face-to-face with Laurie Dann, no longer jerks him from sleep."I still see their eyes," Timm says. "I was in this classroom I thought was deserted. You've got to remember, the adrenaline was up to here. I heard a noise. I looked under a table, like this one, and three kids looked back."Their eyes were as big as silver dollars. Time can pass. I won't forget those eyes."Timm can still see Dann, face down in a puddle of her own blood, as he came upon her body in the house she took hostage."I looked at her," he says. "I just looked down at her and I said, 'This is all? This is it? After all this? And we can't even talk to you?' It seemed like we were cheated."Life is nearly normal for Timm these days. But every so often, when the world goes crazy, the world looks different to Timm."You think you've left it behind you. Then you see those kids killed at that school in Arkansas," Timm says. "Most people who watched that on TV watched events. I watched facial reactions. Because I know what they mean.""Will you do me a favor?" Timm asks while shaking hands goodbye. "If you see Amy Moses, please give her my best. Tell her she's a hero. If you pass that along, I'll feel better."Fate spat at Amy Moses that day in 1988. Substituting for Hubbard Woods teacher Amy Deuble, Moses found herself staring past a pair of handguns and into Laurie Dann's crazed eyes. It was Moses -- all 5 feet, 95 pounds of her -- who lunged for Dann's wrist and wrestled for the weapons. Two slugs were found lodged in the classroom floor -- proof, Timm says, that Moses saved young lives.The storybook ending would have seen Moses hailed as a hero by the community, awarded a permanent teaching position at Hubbard Woods, flourishing after a tidy period of emotional recovery. But Laurie Dann proved that there are no storybooks.Some Winnetka residents whispered that Moses should have done more to stop Dann. Hubbard Woods rejected her teaching application. And some in the community murmured that everyone would be better off if Moses just disappeared.The last decade has not been gentle on Amy Moses. She never has returned to teaching, struggles to find the courage to submit free-lance writings, has abandoned her dream of becoming a mother "because I've been afraid of what kind of mom I might be." While speaking, she often cradles herself, knee-into-chest, and leaves long pauses between thoughts."I hate to talk about myself as a teacher. . . . I miss it whenever a school year's ready to start," Moses says. "When I was told there was a percentage of parents who thought I'd hurt the kids just by being around, that was a huge moment . . . because that's the last thing I'd ever want to do, hurt a child."Ten years later, Moses continues to battle demons. She sometimes struggles to eat, sleep, move with equanimity. "I walked like this," she says, curling her shoulders in on her chest and hunching over at the waist. "I'm still learning not to go into hyper-overdrive when I feel minutely threatened, when there's a knock on the door I'm not expecting."Moses fights back with plenty of therapy, the love of her dog, a new resume and hopes for a free-lance writing career. She trembles when told that Timm has a message for her. But she reaches for something deep in her gut, probably the same thing that pushed her hand against Dann's that day, and asks what Timm had to say. She hears him call her a hero. And she is moved."I've spent so much time feeling very badly," she says, tears welling in her eyes. "I have such a hard time hearing people say something kind about me. But the fact that I'm feeling emotion, that makes me hope I'm beginning to feel again."GRAPHIC: Laurie Dann killed one child and wounded five others before killing herself. Amy Moses lunged for Laurie Dann's wrist and wrestled for the two handguns. ; PHOTO BY LINDA COOPER STAFF REPORTER
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The education of a crusader In the five years since Laurie Dann shot him in the chest, Philip Andrew has learned a lot about life, his government, and the pervasive reach of violence in societyLike most 26-year-olds, Philip J. Andrew still has much to learn about the world. But he has received an education in real life during the last five years that most people never get — or want. The education of Phil Andrew began early on May 20, 1988, the first day of a summer break that looked especially promising for him. A 20-year-old student, he had arrived home the previous evening in the tony Chicago suburb of Winnetka from his junior year at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Andrew had been training all year with the college swim team and felt, he recalls, "in the best shape of my life" — more than ready for the competitive swim meets scheduled for the summer. Even more exciting for him were the two internships he had lined up: one in U.S. Rep. John Porter's office, the other working for the Lake County state's attorney. By all appearances, he was laying the groundwork for a future involved in public service. Andrew was sitting in the kitchen of his family's comfortable home talking to his mother, Ruth Ann, when an unwelcome visitor arrived at the back door. Her name was Laurie Dann, and she would turn his plans for the summer upside down and alter the course of his life. Dann, a name many Illinoisans never will forget, had just left Hubbard Woods Elementary School, where she had shot several children. Eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin, who was shot in a second-grade classroom, died; five others survived their wounds. Police already were searching the neighborhood for Dann when she entered the Andrews' large home, clad in a T-shirt, shower curtain and plastic garbage bag, and carrying two handguns. At first, Andrew and his mother were sympathetic toward Dann, who told them she had been sexually assaulted and was afraid she would be in trouble with police because she shot her attacker. But it soon became apparent Dann's story made little sense. Dann allowed Ruth Ann to leave the house to wait outside for her two daughters' return from high school. Andrew's father, Raymond, also was allowed to leave when his son promised Dann he would stay. At a moment when she seemed to let her guard down, Andrew grabbed one of her guns, a .22-caliber semiautomatic Beretta, and removed the magazine. But when Dann heard police outside the house, she told Andrew she wanted him to stay with her. Then, without warning, she shot him point-blank in the right side of his chest. The bullet punctured both of his lungs, severed his esophagus and ripped through his stomach and pancreas before lodging in the left side of his back. His lungs began to deflate. Andrew dived into a pantry to reload the Beretta, then held it aloft to cover himself as he ran from the house. Outside, Andrew collapsed in his family's driveway. Inside, Dann went to a bedroom, put the barrel of her .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver in her mouth and committed suicide. Thus began Philip Andrew's education — about the violent nature of modern America, about the way his government really works, about shootings so epidemic that some people no longer regard them as a crime issue but rather as a public health menace.
Phillip
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