After discovery of Franklin High hit list and a weapons cache: 'We got lucky'

FRANKLIN – He had a hit list and access to an arsenal.

Seventeen names – Franklin High Principal Barry Woody, an employee of the district attorney's office and a roster of classmates he felt had hurt his girlfriend – were handwritten on a sheet of notebook paper stored loosely in his backpack, according to investigators.

Seventeen – the same number of people killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.

Had a peer not seen the top of the hit list protruding from the Franklin High sophomore's backpack while both were on a school bus, who knows what might have happened later. The possibilities still haunt Macon County law enforcement and school officials.

At home, the 16-year-old had access to more weapons than he could have ever attached to his body.

There, police seized an SKS rifle — a semi-automatic predecessor of the AK-47— two hunting rifles, a shotgun, several pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, including hollow-point bullets designed to inflict maximum damage on their targets.

In the teen's room, deputies said they found a human-shaped paper target riddled with bullet holes, 17 of which the teen had labeled as "kill shots."

Angry and determined, as investigators would later describe him, the teen was prepared for whatever might stand in his way. At Franklin High, that wouldn’t have been much.

As the nation debates how best to protect students from school shootings like the most recent in which 10 people were killed in Texas – options that include increasing school resources officers, posting armed guards, hardening buildings, hiring more counselors – Franklin High represents reality.

Through no fault of its own, the school was ill-prepared for the threat that presented itself in late April, as are schools across Western North Carolina. And that's unlikely to change anytime soon.

Franklin High has 93 entrances and sits less than 100 hundred yards from Phillip Street in a wooded residential neighborhood.

At the time it was built in the early 1950s, the goal had been to make the building a part of the community – accessible to people who lived nearby. The Franklin High gym alone has 22 doors, which include 14 direct entrances to the lobby, as well as entrances on the sides to locker rooms and a weight room.

This is not unusual for WNC, where many schools commonly have dozens of ways in. For instance, there are close to 50 different entrances at Roberson High in Buncombe County. Mountain Heritage High School in Yancey County has 37 entrances – and the century-old school buildings have floor-to-ceiling windows in some areas. In Swain County, a lack of school resource officers makes it hard to monitor buildings, many of which have close to 40 outside entrances.

Franklin High has one school resource officer who is charged with the safety of close to 1,000 students.

A school counselor could conceivably head off any threat through early intervention. But in Macon County, there is one counselor for every 500 students. North Carolina averages one counselor for every 386 students.

“We got lucky," said Ashley Hornsby Welch, district attorney for the state's seven western-most counties, including Macon.

The new norm

Welch has dealt with school threats on an almost weekly basis since the Parkland shooting in February. So when police called on May 1 to notify her about a threat against Franklin High, she wasn't surprised.

In recent months, Welch has learned of threats students posted on social media, scribbled on bathroom walls and issued in heated exchanges at school.

Her office takes all threats seriously, but that doesn't mean all threats are equal.

"I hate to say that this is becoming the new norm, but it seems like it," Welch said. "I just assumed it was one of these normal threats that we keep getting."

She was wrong.

By the end of the day on which the Franklin High hit lists were reported, Welch said she knew the threat was unlike any her jurisdiction had seen.

Two 16-year-old students, a boy and a girl, had been found in possession of multiple hit lists containing the names of fellow students, the school principal, even an attorney in Welch's office, the district attorney said.

Within hours of learning of the threat, detectives had determined at least one of the suspects had both the means and the intent to begin crossing names off his list, according to both Welch and Macon County Sheriff Robbie Holland.

And Welch — like many school district and law enforcement officials — knew that good fortune and little else prevented tragedy.

"Honestly, I put the phone down and thought 'what next?'" she said. "It was one of those situations where you take a deep breath and thank God that we caught this when we did."

More: Semi-automatic rifle, shotguns, handguns seized from teen with Franklin High 'hit list'

More: Wave of school shootings has educators preparing for 'when, not if'

Welch isn't the only public official grappling with the spike in school shooting threats, which many WNC leaders say are at an all-time high.

In March, less than a month after Parkland, a threat similar in seriousness to the Franklin High case was foiled by a student in Henderson County.

A teenage boy had recorded and shared cellphone videos of himself last July showing off a two-tone Glock before issuing a series of profane threats to his social media followers. He punctuated each with bursts of gunfire.

The boy, 17, was arrested March 4, after police say he threatened "mass violence" against Rugby Middle School in other, unrelated social media posts.

Henderson County officials are now in the process of recruiting armed guards to station at some schools and expect to expand the force to cover all 23 district schools by next year.

The Franklin High case – like the one in Henderson – involved a student reporting a threat made by a peer.

Given the opportunity, he would have done harm, the suspect told police

While riding the bus to school on April 27, a Macon County student saw a copy of one of the two hit lists recovered by police in the male suspect's backpack. The Citizen Times is not naming the suspect because of his age. Family members of the boy could not be reached.

Two other students — who also saw the list pulled from the teen's backpack — reported the threat to a school resource officer on May 1, prompting an investigation that led to an alarming confession and seizure of firearms, swords and other weapons from the boy's home.

Macon County Detective A. Wright, in an application for a warrant to search the home, wrote that the suspect "stated that he had every intention of causing harm to the people on the hit list."

The teen reiterated that in a later interview with law enforcement, saying he had a temper so severe that he "blacks out when he gets angry," Wright wrote, noting the teen's family knew about his anger issues.

During that interview, the teen told detectives he had access to firearms and, "if given the opportunity he would harm those on the lists."

The teen was charged with multiple counts of communicating threats, and was being held in lieu of $100,000 bond.

Detectives also interviewed the boy's girlfriend, also a suspect in the case. She told them she knew about the lists, which contained the names of people who had hurt her, according to Wright. She said that her boyfriend "is very protective of her."

She has been charged with communicating threats, Welch said. The Citizen Times is withholding her name because of her age. A family member said no one from the family would comment.

'We could have been the next national tragedy'

As mounting numbers of school threats disrupt instruction, cause fear and push law enforcement and superintendents to take on new roles, some administrators are questioning whether enough is being done.

Anonymous reporting apps, school safety meetings and an increase of on-campus police are a few tactics Macon County Schools Superintendent Chris Baldwin has implemented, but there is still a struggle to determine what works best, he said.

Baldwin is charged with the safety of 4,400 students, plus hundreds of faculty and staff. Long before Parkland, he was focused on how to add layers of protection to his 11 schools.

But after the hit lists were discovered, he said he sobered to the reality Franklin High could have been the next national tragedy.

“This goes to show you that it could happen anywhere in the country, including this region,” said Baldwin, who has 28 years of experience as an educator.

When he started teaching in the early '90s, schools worried over whether hunting rifles should be allowed on campus. The Columbine, Colorado, school shooting changed everything. Then Parkland touched a nerve nationwide that has yet to ease, Baldwin said.

“There was something very real and threatening about that shooting that affected my staff, students and parents,” he said.

Baldwin responded to suggestions from the community and prepared reports for facility upgrades, requested more SROs and demanded something be done about the increasingly desperate need for more counselors.

A deepening counselor crisis

The Macon County school district lags far behind the state average for school counselors to students. There is one counselor for every 500 students, versus one for every 386 students statewide.

The national ratio is one counselor for every 482 students, but a February report recommended schools have one for every 250 students, as stated by the American School Counselor Association, which works to advise the U.S. Department of Education.

“They are swamped,” Baldwin said. “They are using most of their time and resources to keep students on track to graduate and get to college. But the challenge is serving their emotional and behavioral needs.”

Baldwin's role is demanding, as are most in his position – meetings with administrators in the mornings, walking school campuses and meeting with teachers in the afternoon, and budget meetings or parent meetings at night.

And counselors also have tight schedules. One minute they are working with a student applying to colleges and the next they are navigating a meltdown by another in a hallway, Baldwin said.

"It's a near impossible position they are put in," he said.

Macon schools have two psychologists, one full time and the other part time, to support the mental health needs of 4,400 students – or at least that’s what they are supposed to be doing, Baldwin said.

“They are generally tied up with evaluating students for disabilities rather than actually providing services,” he said.

DA Welch reiterated the need for mental health treatment opportunities for students in a state she said underfunds such services.

Given limited resources, Baldwin’s team has gotten innovative.

After Parkland, students enrolled in welding classes have constructed devices that can be placed under doors to prevent entry – a metal bar designed to slip underneath the doorjamb to wrap around the threshold in case of a lockdown.

“It completely prevents entry and it would take a military device to get inside,” he said.

Suspect was remembered as 'polite young man'

Baldwin’s district is one of only five in the state to use a threat reporting app called Speak Up, which allows students to anonymously report incidents of bullying or harassment, whether they occur on campus or online.

Despite the innovative app, the students accused of authoring the hit lists plotted virtually undetected, investigators say. Neither had red flags on their records from middle or high school, and the boy had gotten encouraging feedback from teachers.

“A middle school teacher of the male student has positive memories of him and remembers him as being a composed, polite young man,” Baldwin said. “Neither student has any disciplinary background that I am aware of.”

Baldwin sees early detection of emotional instability as missing when there is a school shooting.

“What concerned me the most about Parkland was that the student knew there were SROs on campus and knew he was going to be met by armed authorities and still the tragedy occurred,” he said. “We need to able to address the needs of these children and do whatever we can to prevent them from becoming a threat to others. But we do not currently have access to these resources to do that.”

Law enforcement is limited in its ability to stop crime before it happens. "We are reactive; we can't arrest people before they commit a crime," Welch said.

Neither suspect was on Holland's radar before the discovery of the hit list, he said.

Though pictures of the weapons cache seized from the boy’s home may look alarming, none of the guns was illegal to possess.

The firearms found in his home were of less concern to the sheriff's office than the fact the teen had access to guns considering his family knew about his anger issues, Holland said.

"We live in the mountains of North Carolina. For individuals to have several firearms in their house doesn’t cause me concern," he said. "The thing that concerns me is this individual had access to all these guns.”

Holland said his office, school officials and the students who reported the hit list — whom he called "absolute heroes" — handled the situation as well as they possibly could have. But without luck on their side, the outcome still could have been tragic.

Neither he nor Welch sees an easy solution. Holland said reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness may empower families to seek help for their loved ones, but until that happens, there will be people, like the teenage boy, who fall through the cracks.

“It would’ve been nice to know that he had such severe anger issues, but the reality is that in this community, in every community, there are people who have issues that we don’t know about," he said. "Families don’t go out and (talk about) about mental illness even though they can't help it."

Lara Stevenson specializes in counseling adolescents and teens at her private practice in Asheville.

Stevenson said she often sees an initial resistance from parents who consider taking their child to see a mental health specialist, which she said is understandable.

"Taking your child to a therapist can feel as if you've failed as a parent, even though this is often not true," Stevenson said. "There is a fear of being judged by the therapist.

"There is a fear that their child will open up to someone else about the messy parts of their family, which feels very exposing for parents."

Or teens may struggle with having a counselor because they don't want another adult voice in their life telling them what to do or that they need to be fixed, Stevenson said.

"Or there is a fear that no adult will take their emotions seriously because many adults say to kids, 'You think you have it hard now, just wait until you're an adult'," Stevenson said. "This has been very invalidating for kids and has resulted in many teens feeling as if adults will laugh at their problems and not see them as real."

The way Welch sees it, even if law enforcement does everything exactly the way it's supposed to, some tragedies can't be avoided.

"Sometimes you just can't prevent something," she said. "I just don't know how close we were in this case, and that scares me."

Hit list raised fears

There are concerns circulating among parents, who say their children are struggling with a growing anxiety around attending school.

Kirstin Dodge’s daughter has always loved school and had never missed a day of class – until after news of the hit lists.

“More than anything it makes me sad because my daughter has had a wonderful year,” Dodge said. “She has made new friends and gotten good grades, but now she is afraid to go to school and that breaks my heart.”

Students named in the hit lists were immediately pulled out of class and told the news, Baldwin said.

They were surrounded by counselors, teachers and others to provide comfort.

"What has really stood out to me in this investigation is one thing that Welch said about the young man — 'He was crying out for help'," Baldwin said. "That has stuck with me, because our kids need mental health support more now than ever before."

Administrators offered the group of targeted students the opportunity to take time away from school to process the threat and made them and their families aware of counseling services readily available, Baldwin said.

For those not named in the hit lists, school has been business as usual since. Several students told the Citizen Times after class earlier this month they felt the situation had been handled. Other students said that hadn't been told much about what happened.

One freshman who said he'd known the male suspect for years said he was shocked by the news but said he didn't feel that he was in danger.

Having dealt with school threats regularly in the last few months, Welch said this is a typical reaction.

"Unfortunately, I think that kids have probably been desensitized," Welch said. “You hate it when these things happen, but on the other hand, it's a good teaching lesson for the community. It reminds us of the day and age that we live in."



Macon County Schools by the numbers

Schools: 11

Students served: 4,400

School Resource Officers: 11

Counselors: 10.5

Ratio of school counselors to students in North Carolina is 1:386, below the national average of 1:482.

Ratio of school counselors to students in Macon County Schools: 1:500

Recommended federal ratio of counselors to students nationwide: 1:250

Staffing ratio of school psychologists in North Carolina public schools is 1:2,100 – more than quadruple the recommended level of 1:500

(Numbers provided by Macon County Schools and a 2018 report by the North Carolina School Psychology Association)

Franklin High School exterior entrances

Main: 13

Media: 8

Vocational: 6 doors and 6 garage doors

Gym: 22

Careers: 17

English: 11

Fine arts: 14

Agriculture building: 3 doors and 1 garage door

Weight room: 2 doors and 1 garage door

Fieldhouse/locker rooms: 18 doors and 7 garage doors

Total exterior doors: 114

(Numbers provided by Macon County Schools)

