Elizabeth Lecron and Vincent Armstrong visited Columbine High School and exchanged letters with the Charleston church mass shooter, sending him literature about Nazis.

Via Lucas County Corrections

An Ohio couple obsessed with mass shootings — traveling to Columbine High School and corresponding with the Charleston church shooter — were indicted in federal court Thursday for conspiring to use explosives and firearms to launch a massacre to kill and injure others. Elizabeth "Bee" Lecron, 23, and Vincent Armstrong, 23, were arrested in December after an unnamed tipster contacted Toledo police on June 11 and said Lecron "had recently expressed a desire to conduct a violent attack and was in possession of multiple firearms and the beginning elements of a pipe bomb." An FBI agent testified that, in posts dating back months, Lecron posted "voluminous" photographs and comments glorifying mass murderers on her Tumblr account, titled Ligature Markings. Her posts particularly celebrated Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015, and the Columbine High School shooters.

In July, Lecron wrote a letter to Roof in prison introducing herself and asking him for any book recommendations. He replied shortly after and asked her to mail him books about civil uprisings and the Nazis. "According to the Bureau of Prisons, Roof has only responded to four individuals, including Lecron, during the course of his incarceration," the affidavit stated. On Oct. 17, Lecron replied and sent him a book about a Belgian who fought for the Nazis. "I've been thinking about you a lot and decided to send you books every 2 weeks," she wrote. "Stay strong, Storm. You have a lot of people that care for you beyond those walls." The tipster also directed police to Lecron's Tumblr page as evidence of her fixation on mass murder and said that Lecron wrote in her diary that she was planning a mass attack.



Toledo police referred the case to the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI, who began to monitor the couple's social media accounts.



Via ligaturemarkings.tumblr.com , This Tumblr has been deleted / Via ligaturemarkings.tumblr.com Images posted on Lecron's now-deleted Tumblr page.

In August, Lecron and Armstrong traveled to Columbine, Colorado, for a pilgrimage of sorts to honor the school shooters. "We're gonna try to hit Rampart Range, the memorial, the gas station, the bowling alley and such. It's gonna be a lot of fun and I can't wait to post pictures," she wrote on her Tumblr before the trip.

Tumblr

On Aug. 18, one day after the couple left for Colorado, a federal judge authorized a search warrant for the home they shared. US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Justin Herdman said in a statement Thursday that "law enforcement found an AK-47, shotgun, multiple handguns, ammunition and end caps purchased by Armstrong, which can be used in the manufacture of pipe bombs." Authorities also found journal entries by Lecron and Armstrong discussing a violent attack. "On June 8, Armstrong wrote: 'Now I have these thoughts…These memories. They haunt me. I have a vision. A vision to kill. To hunt the unwilling...'" On her now-deleted Tumblr, Lecron posted pictures from outside Columbine High School with the caption that the experience made her "tear up."

Tumblr

Soon after returning from Columbine, Lecron's Tumblr was removed from the site for violating its code of conduct, and Lecron created a new profile with the username "CharlestonChurchMiracle," a reference to Roof's mass murder.



Lecron's deleted CharlestonChurchMiracle Tumblr