Teen Suspect Wrote of His Anger

Associated Press/October 16, 1997
By Gina Holland

Pearl, Miss. -- A teen-ager accused of stabbing his mother to death, then going to school and gunning down two students, spewed anger at society, his ex-girlfriend and God in newly released writings.

In five pages of a small scrawl that authorities identified as the writing of Luke Woodham, the suspect also talks of being unloved.

``I am the epitome of all Evil! I have no mercy for humanity for they created me, they tortured me until I snapped and became what I am today,'' he wrote in the papers used as court evidence this week.

Woodham, 16, advised ``hate the accursed god of Christianity. Hate him for making you! Hate him for flinging you into a monstrous life you did not ask for nor deserve! Fill your heart, mind, and soul with hatred; until it's all you know ... hate until you can't anymore.''

Prosecutors allege he was a member of a devil-worshipping group known as ``Kroth'' and was instructed by the group leader to kill his former girlfriend and others at Pearl High School on Oct. 1.

Grant Boyette, charged with being the mastermind, talked about following Satan and touted the power of the devil, a friend testified in 18-year-old Boyette's preliminary hearing Tuesday.

Rumors of a satanic cult had circulated in Pearl, a town of 22,000, ever since Boyette and five other teens were arrested on conspiracy charges Oct. 7. At Boyette's hearing, prosecutors said the gaunt, pale teen-ager was known as the ``father'' of the small group and that he appointed Woodham the ``assassin.''

Woodham is in jail on three counts of murder, accusing of stabbing his mother in her bed before going to school and opening fire on a group of students. Two girls, including his ex-girlfriend Christina Menefee, were killed.

Woodham wrote that he ``suffered all my life.''

``No one truly loved me. No one ever truly cared about me. I only loved one thing in my whole life and that was Christina Menefee. But she was torn away from me,'' he wrote.

He complained that another ex-girlfriend ''made fun of me while we were together.''