A Suspected School Shooter Up Close

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By Newsweek Editors

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HUNDREDS OF UNUSED bullets littered the carpet. The outline of a body was traced onto a plywood sheet. An operatic version of ""Romeo and Juliet'' played eerily and endlessly over stereo speakers. These were some of the ominous signs police encountered when they arrived at the Springfield, Ore., home of Kip Kinkel last May, after the teenager allegedly killed two classmates and wounded 22 others in a high-school shooting spree that jolted the nation. A judge released 90 pages of previously sealed police records on the case last week, at the request of The Oregonian newspaper.

The new details were unsettling. After Kinkel, already in custody for the school shootings, urged police to search his house, they found his mother and father dead in separate, blood-spattered rooms. They also found bomb-making materials and how-to books, along with a popcorn tin full of 9-mm shell casings. A bottle of Gilbey's gin was in Kinkel's bedroom. A Mother's Day card--signed LOVE, KIP--sat on the living-room mantel. Now awaiting trial, Kinkel was recently transferred to an adult prison; he turned 16 in August.

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