ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) – The gunman who opened fire in an Oregon college shot one classmate after saying he could save her life by begging, and others were killed after being told to crawl across the floor, according to relatives of students in the classroom.
However, Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer spared a student and gave the “lucky one” something to deliver to authorities, according to the mother of a student who witnessed Thursday’s rampage.
Authorities have not disclosed whether they have an envelope or package from Harper-Mercer, who Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said Saturday killed himself as officers arrived. But a law enforcement official said a manifesto of several pages had been recovered.
Bonnie Schaan, the mother of 16-year-old Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, said she was told by her 16-year-old daughter that the gunman gave someone an envelope and told him to go to a corner of the classroom.
Harper-Mercer said the person “‘was going to be the lucky one,'” Schaan told reporters outside a hospital where her daughter’s kidney was removed after she was shot.