Every day I live with, you know, the knowledge that I I took the lives of children. And that’s real difficult. January 29th, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer aimed her rifle at an elementary school and opened fire, killing two and wounding nine. When asked why, she gave a chilling answer. I don’t like Mondays.
Decades later, she’s still behind bars. This is what happens to female school shooters in prison. A professor Amy Bishop opened fire inside a faculty meeting, killing three Alabama colleagues. A string of unsettling episodes has emerged in her past. February 12th, 2010. It was a Friday afternoon at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
The faculty meeting in room 369 was like any other. tenure discussions, policy updates, and the usual academic debates. And then, without a word, Professor Amy Bishop stood up, pulled out a gun, and started firing. Panic erupts as colleagues try to hide under tables or even flee the room. But sadly, the people sitting closest to her never had a chance.
By the time the gunfire stopped, three professors were dead and three others were wounded. And just like that, Amy Bishop, a Harvard educated neuroscientist, a mother of four, and an associate professor, had just committed a mass shooting. And yet, I guess the most shocking part was that this wasn’t even the first time she had pulled a trigger.
But before we dive into her life, you got to understand something. People like Amy Bishop are an anomaly. Mass shootings, especially at schools and universities, are almost always carried out by men. According to the FBI, out of 332 mass murders from 2000 to 2019, only 13 were female. That’s less than 4%. Also, a study by the DOJ found that between 1966 and 2019, 97.
7% of mass shooters were male. And so, the numbers really speak for themselves. But the question is why? Experts say it comes down to three things. One, men externalize anger. Women internalize it. You see, when men feel wronged, they lash out. Women are more likely to turn that pain inward through self harm, eating disorders, or mental health problems.
Two, men study past mass shooters, and many school shooters today idolize the Coline attackers, or even the Virginia Tech gunman. Now, because so few women have done this, female shooters have fewer role models to follow. And three, most female mass shooters don’t act alone. Instead, they tend to commit violence alongside a male partner, often in attacks driven by some ideological motive.
For example, back in 2015, a husband and wife duo carried out the San Bernardino mass shooting, killing 14 people in what was later classified as an act of terrorism. And in 2019, a woman and her male partner target a Jewish kosher deli in Jersey City, killing five people. And then all of a sudden we have a case like Amy Bishop and everybody had to stop and ask why.
And well, here’s the part that makes Amy Bishop’s case even more unsettling. This wasn’t her first act of violence. 1986, a 21-year-old Amy fatally shoots her younger brother, Seth. And according to her, it was an accident. She’d been loading the shotgun at home when it went off, killing him on the spot. But when investigators reopened the case after the university shooting, things didn’t add up.
Bishop had actually fired the gun inside her house first, firing two shots, one into her bedroom wall and the other into her brother’s chest. And right after shooting her brother, she would run down the street and try to hijack a car by shooting at it. And the most bizarre part of it all, the case was mysteriously closed with no real investigation.
Then in 1993, a pipe bomb was mailed to one of her former Harvard supervisors. It never detonated, thank God, but both Amy and her husband were questioned as persons of interest. Yet, despite the suspicion, no charges were ever filed against him. And in 2002, she attacked another woman at an IHOP restaurant over a booster seat.
Yeah, you heard that right, a booster seat. She punched this woman in the head and screamed, “I am Dr. Amy Bishop. So now, can you see a pattern somewhere? For decades, Amy Bishop’s anger was building up, just barely hidden. And every time she managed to avoid real consequences, until 2010. By 2009, Bishop’s career was crumbling.
She had applied for tenure, a permanent coveted position that guarantees job security in academia, but she was denied. She fought it, appealed, argued, pushed back, and still the answer didn’t change. Her time at the university was coming to an end, and she wasn’t handling it well. Then came February 12th, 2010, the day she decided to take revenge.
She sat silently in this faculty meeting for 40 minutes before pulling out her 9mm Ruger. She then starts firing execution style, starting with the person closest to her. And finally, when her gun jammed, Professor Deborah Morardi rushed at her and managed to shove her out of the room. After the chaos was over and Bishop was arrested, she seemed confused, reportedly muttering, “They’re still alive. It didn’t happen.
There’s no way.” But it did. And now, for the first time, she was going to face some real consequences. September 24th, 2012, Bishop was given life in prison without the possibility of parole and was sent to Julia Tutweiler Prison for women. One of the most notorious prisons in Alabama. This isn’t some minimum security white collar prison for ex-p profofessors, Tutweiler is known to be hell.
It’s overcrowded, violent, and plagued with reports of sexual abuse by prison guards. And for someone like Amy Bishop, this was a completely different world. Because here’s the thing about prison hierarchy. Even amongst criminals, some crimes are seen as worse than others. And while male mass shooters sometimes gain some twisted kind of notoriety, female mass shooters are often despised, even by other inmates.
As of 2020, Bishop’s security classification is medium, and her residence is a dormatory instead of a cell block. But despite that, she had to learn the harsh truth about prison. And there’s no respect, no power, and no fear. just isolation and the constant need to watch your back. And it’s even worse when you refuse to accept your new reality.
You see, even during her trial, Bishop seemed to struggle to accept what she did. Witnesses said that she would shake her head in denial whenever prosecutors described her actions as intentional. Not to mention the fact that she always prided herself on being Dr. Amy Bishop. But now her Harvard degree was pretty useless.
her academic achievements meaningless and her old world gone the moment she pulled that trigger. Now she’s just another inmate and one nobody wanted to be around. And the thing about her case is that there were so many warning signs, but nobody would stop her. And then three people died. Now she’s spending the rest of her life in prison.
And the world will remember her not as a scientist or a professor, but as a cold-hearted killer. But the real question is, how many red flags do you need before someone like Amy Bishop is stopped? We learned an 18-year-old high school student at Morsville is now facing charges accused of planning a Valentine’s Day mass shooting at school on campus.
Now, we’ve already talked about how rare female school shooters are, but when it comes to the juvie female shooters, the numbers are even smaller. In fact, in over 40 years, there have been only a handful of cases. And that’s exactly why this recent story sent shock waves across the US.
Valentine’s Day 2025, the hallways of Morsville High School, Indiana, should have been buzzing with lastminute love notes, chocolate trades, and teenage drama. Instead, it becomes a day of horror because behind the scenes, police had just stopped what could have been another Parkland massacre planned for the exact same date 7 years later.
And the person behind it is someone no one expected. 18-year-old Trinity Shockley, a high school senior who’d been plotting this attack for over a year. She wasn’t an outsider lurking in the shadows, and she definitely didn’t fit the stereotypical profile people imagine when they think of school shooters.
But that’s what made her case even more disturbing. Trinity had this entire plan. She had a target list. And she had chosen February 14th for a reason. That’s because Trinity wasn’t just interested in mass shootings. She was obsessed. And her fixation had a name. Nicholas Cruz, the Parkland shooter who killed 17 people on Valentine’s Day 2018.
But Trinity wouldn’t see him as a mass murderer. She saw him as someone she believed understood her pain. For her, he wasn’t a monster. He was a kindred spirit. She collected pictures of him and wore pins with his face on her backpack. She also kept a heart-shaped locket with his photo inside. She even imagined having kids with him. Kids she already named.
And so this wasn’t just some morbid curiosity. This was idolization. And it wouldn’t stop here. Trinity decorated her room with a collage of mass murderers. She filled her notebooks with violent writings, dark thoughts, and disturbing sketches. And then her fascination with school shooters became so out of control that she wanted to be one.
For over a year, Trinity kept this plan a secret. obviously mapping it out, picking out the perfect date and choosing her victims very carefully. She even bought a bulletproof vest. And for months, none was the wiser. But then Trinity got too comfortable and she started bragging online. One day on Discord, she wrote, “Parkling part two.
I’ve been planning this for a year.” She even had the audacity to share details of her plan, thinking she was untouchable for some reason. And the most horrifying part of it all was that one of the names on her target list was her best friend. That’s when someone finally decided to say something. February 13th, 2025, a tip comes through the Say Something Hotline, a national service created to prevent school shootings.
Someone saw Trinity’s messages and freaked out knowing that Trinity wasn’t bluffing. And so the tipster wasted no time revealing that Trinity had access to an AR-15 and had just ordered a bulletproof vest and that she was actively planning this attack. Law enforcement didn’t hesitate. The FBI got involved quickly and the local police were alerted.
And so within hours of that tip, everything changed. And by the time Trinity woke up that morning, she wasn’t preparing for a massacre. She was being handcuffed and taken into custody. Now, we know Trinity was obsessed with mass shooters, but how did she reach this point? After all, you’re not born wanting to be a school shooter.
That kind of darkness builds over time. And well, for Trinity, it all started with an accident. In 2022, while waiting for her school bus, she was hit by a drunk driver. Physically, her injuries weren’t severe, and she healed pretty quickly, but mentally, she was never the same again.
Then things took an even darker turn when she found out that the driver had taken his own life. And just like that, she blamed herself. Then came the bullying and the isolation. And then the biggest blow of all, her mother passed away. And that’s when Trinity felt like she had lost everything. But instead of reaching out for some help, she reached for something darker, becoming something darker.
After her arrest, Trinity was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of intimidation related to terrorism. The judge called her a significant threat to herself and the public. And before even considering bail, they ordered a full psychological evaluation. During her first court hearing, she asked, “What if no one can pay my bond? How long will I be in jail?” The judge simply answered, “Until the case is decided.
” And now Trinity’s sitting behind bars waiting for the trial that’ll determine her fate. But if there’s one thing she should be thankful for, it’s the person who spoke up. The one who had the courage to stop her before it was too late. Because if she had gone through with that plan, there’d probably be a bunch of dead people and she’d never walk free again.
This is why prevention matters. This is why intervention matters. And this is why one person choosing to say something made all the difference because this could have been another tragic headline. Instead, it became the story of a massacre that never happened and hopefully one we learn from. It’s March 7th, 2001, and it’s lunchtime at Bishop Newman Junior Senior High School in Pennsylvania.
The cafeteria was loud, filled with the usual teenage chatter. And then a gunshot shattered everything. Elizabeth Bush, a 14-year-old student, had just pulled the trigger. The bullet struck her fellow student Kimberly Marches in the shoulder. She didn’t die, thank God, but she could have. And just like that, Elizabeth, the quiet, religious girl, became the school shooter no one saw coming.
Elizabeth wasn’t the type of kid people imagine when they thought of a school shooter. She’d never been violent or aggressive. She was a shy, deeply religious and thoughtful kid. The kind of kid who hung posters of Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King in her bedroom. She would even dream of becoming a nun one day.
But because of what she did that fateful March day, instead of finishing high school, she spent her teenage years locked away in a psychiatric juvie facility. So, what happened? How did this 14-year-old girl who once devoted her life to kindness end up pulling a gun in the school cafeteria? The answer isn’t simple, but it starts with pain.
Elizabeth was different, and middle school can really be a cruel place for kids who don’t fit in. She wasn’t into the same things as the other girls. She didn’t talk much, and she didn’t dress like them. So they picked on her and they called her a freak, a weirdo, a loser. At first, she would try to brush this off. But bullying, we all know, is something you just can’t ignore.
It wears you down piece by piece. At home, her parents thought she was just going through some phase. They saw a kind-hearted, thoughtful girl who loved animals and was deeply religious. But inside, Elizabeth was breaking, spiraling even. She started skipping school, pretending to be sick. Anything to avoid walking into those hallways.
Then came the depression. Not just sadness, but that deep, crushing loneliness that makes you feel like the world would be better off without you. And when the pain became too much, she turned it on herself. Razor blades, self-inflicted wounds, and thoughts of ending it all. Her parents did notice this.
They were scared and they definitely knew something was wrong. So, they tried to help the only way they knew how. They transferred her to a new school, maybe hoping for a fresh start. But here’s the thing about starting over. It isn’t that simple. And the past has a way of following you. At first, Bishop Newman High seemed better.
But then the bullying started again. the same whispers, the same name calling. Even her own friends, including Kimberly Marchesi, the girl she later shot, would sometimes join in. To them, it was just a joke. But to Elizabeth, it was one more reminder that she would never belong. And one day, she finally snapped.
She took her father’s gun, a 22 caliber revolver, and brings it to school. But believe it or not, she had no intention of shooting anyone. Not at first. She planned to kill herself right there in front of everyone to show them what they had done to her to make them see her pain. But at the last second, something inside her shifted.
Instead of turning the gun on herself, she points it at Kimberly and pulls the trigger. Afterward, she said she didn’t even know why she did it. She later told the judge, “It just happened, sir. I don’t know. I just wanted to scare her.” But the damage had already been done. Following this shooting, Elizabeth was arrested on the spot.
During her trial, she admitted that she wanted to end her own life that day. Elizabeth said, “My original intent was to shoot. But the judge didn’t believe her.” He said, “I find that you intentionally sought her out and intentionally sought to cause her death.” She was sentenced to an indefinite stay in a psychiatric treatment facility for juveniles, and that’s where she spent the next 3 years of her life.
Now, psychiatric juvie isn’t like an ordinary prison. It’s a place where young offenders, especially those with severe mental health problems, are sent to be rehabilitated, not just punished. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Every part of her life was controlled. When she ate, when she slept, when she could talk to her family.
There were therapy sessions, group discussions, and constant reminders of why she was there. Most kids never see the inside of a place like this. Elizabeth lived it. She had lost her freedom, her future, and any hope of a normal teenage life. But unlike most school shooters, she got a second chance. 2004, after 3 years of juvie detention centers in group homes, a judge authorized Elizabeth’s release, but she wasn’t exactly free.
She had to wear an ankle monitor, allowing them to track her whereabouts. They banned her from going to the city of Williamsport where the incident took place until she turned 21 and she was required to continue therapy because even though she was out, the system wasn’t ready to trust her completely. This girl had spent her entire adolescence paying for one moment of rage, pain, and impulse.
And now she has to find a way to rebuild her life. There isn’t much information about where Elizabeth Bush is now. And maybe that’s for the best. Maybe she chose to live a quiet life away from the headlines that once painted her as a teenage shooter. Maybe she’s still carrying the weight of what she did.
Or maybe she’s found a way to move forward. Either way, we all hope that she did manage to rebuild her life. Because chances like that are very rare. I don’t sit here and plan on how to go out and kill people and stuff like that. That’s that’s um just not that’s not how I am or who I am. We go back to January 29th, 1979.
A Monday morning like any other students lining up outside Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, waiting for the gates to open. Some were laughing, others still half asleep, dragging their backpacks behind them. Across the street, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer sat by her bedroom window, watching them.
Then, she picked up her Ruger 22 caliber semi-automatic rifle, aimed it out of the window, and started shooting. The first few shots didn’t even register as gunfire. Nobody thought that it could have been possible. Then, one by one, students started dropping to the pavement, screaming, running for cover.
Inside, principal Burton Rag heard the gunshots and ran outside to help. Brenda shot him. Then, custodian Michael Suker tried to pull a student to safety. She shot him, too. In total, she fired 30 rounds, hitting eight students and a responding police officer before barricading herself inside the house. Then came the phone calls.
Reporters dialed her number, desperate for answers. And when one of them finally got through and asked why she did it, she gave an answer that sent chills throughout the country. She said, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” And just like that, Brenda Spencer, a bored, troubled teenager with a rifle, becomes one of America’s first modern school shooters.
At 5’2 in tall and barely 90 lb, Brenda didn’t look like a killer. She was pretty quiet and unassuming. But beneath that surface, she was very angry, depressed, and getting out of control. Her parents had gone through a divorce when she was young, and she had chosen to stay with her father, Wallace Spencer. That decision would define her life.
They lived in poverty, crammed into this run-down house filled with empty whiskey bottles. There were no beds, just a single mattress on the floor. Later, Brenda would also claim that her father abused her, and that she was subject to total neglect from her mother. She started skipping school, getting into trouble for petty theft, drugs, and vandalism.
And believe it or not, she had already been arrested for shooting out school windows with a BB gun. So, following this incident, a psychiatrist recommended that she’d be hospitalized for depression. Her father refused. And then just weeks before the shooting, he gave her a Christmas present, a 22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammo.
Brenda later said, “I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun. I felt like he wanted me to kill myself.” But instead, she decided to turn it on an elementary school full of innocent students. Do you remember the gun? Mhm. I remember the the rifle cuz I had gotten that a month previous. as a Christmas present. Yeah, it was for Christmas.
After the shooting, Brenda held off police for 6 hours, casually taking phone calls from reporters while snipers took position outside. She told negotiators she still had ammo and would come out shooting if they tried to force her out. Then out of nowhere, she gave up.
Not because she felt guilty, and not even because she was afraid. She surrendered because they promised her a Burger King meal. And just like that, one of the first school shootings in American history was over. Brenda was eventually charged as an adult and plead guilty to two counts of murder. She was sentenced to 25 years to life. Now, she spent more than four decades behind bars, and not a single parole board has ever believed she deserves freedom.
Brenda entered prison at 16. She’s now in her 60s, having spent more time behind bars than she ever did outside. and it hasn’t been easy. She’s described her time in California’s women’s prisons as violent and isolating. She had struggled with mental illness and had attempted to take her own life many times.
1993, she was diagnosed with epilepsy and schizopeeffective disorder after suffering multiple grandmal seizures in prison. Over the years, she’s changed her story. sometimes blaming her father, sometimes acting confused about why she did it. In fact, when she first became eligible for parole in 1993, the board asked if she felt remorse.
She said she didn’t remember the shooting. And when she applied again in 2001, she tried another approach, saying now she felt guilty and admitted that every school shooting made her feel responsible. She said, “With every school shooting, I feel like I’m partially responsible. What if they got the idea from what I did? But even then, the parole board denied her.
Her most recent parole hearing was in February 2025. And once again, she was denied. Why? Well, because after 46 years in prison, Brenda still minimizes the horror of what she’s done. She claims she doesn’t remember saying, “I don’t like Mondays.” And still struggles to explain why she did it, giving only vague, inconsistent answers. Today, Brenda Spencer’s name might not be as wellknown, but what she did left a scar on history.
Her words, “I don’t like Mondays,” became synonymous with school shootings. The phrase even inspired a song by the Boomtown Rats, which became a hit in the UK. Bob Gelof, the band’s lead singer, later revealed that Brenda wrote to him from prison, bragging that his song made her famous. But her crime did something far worse than inspire a song. It set a terrifying precedent.
And then came Coline, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Parkland, and sadly the list still goes on. A prosecutor on Brenda’s case once said, “She hurt so many people and had so much to do with starting a deadly trend in America.” And that’s what makes her story so terrifying. Because anyone looking for an excuse to cause pain, to lash out at the world, can hear those words and think, “Yeah, I don’t like Mondays either.
” Brenda Spencer is still locked up today. Her next parole hearing is in 2028. Until then, she’s sitting in her cell, decades after she picked up that rifle and changed history forever. I love you. I love you. I love you. November 30th, 2021. The day started like any other morning at Oxford High School in Michigan with teenagers dragging themselves through the halls, teachers collecting late homework and those last minute texts before class.
Then at 12:50 p.m., the first gunshot rang out and suddenly everything changed. Students are scrambling for cover. Screams filling up the hallways. Teachers locking doors, shoving the desks against them, and would tell students to hide. But sadly, four students never made it out alive that day.
Madison Baldwin, Tate Meyer, Hannah St. Juliana, and Justin Schilling. Seven others would be injured, including a teacher. And the shooter was 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley. And while Ethan was the one who pulled the trigger, the story doesn’t start with him. It starts with his parents, especially his mother, Jennifer Crumbley.
Because when people asked, “How did this happen?” The answer was pretty simple. Jennifer handed her son the gun. And so, let’s talk about this gun for a second. Because here’s the thing. Ethan didn’t steal it. He didn’t buy it on the streets. He didn’t borrow it from a friend. His parents gave it to him.
On Black Friday, just 4 days before the shooting, Jennifer’s husband, James, walked into a gun store and bought a 9mm SIG Sour SP 2022 handgun for his son. And Jennifer even bragged about it on social media, calling it her son’s Christmas present. Yay, a gun for a 15-year-old kid. How reckless could that be? But what truly makes this even worse was that they knew.
They absolutely knew that Ethan was mentally struggling. Ethan wasn’t some happy, welladjusted kid who snapped overnight. The red flags were everywhere. Let’s go to March 2021. He starts texting his mom about demons and ghosts in the house. And then that summer he starts torturing animals, making molotov cocktails and would start isolating himself as well. October 2021.
Now his mental state is becoming worse when his only friend moved away. And he would spiral into this major depression by November 29th, 2021. The day before the shooting, a teacher caught him searching for ammunition on his phone in class. Now, the school called Jennifer, and her response was immediately texting her son, saying, “Lol, I’m not mad at you.
You just have to learn not to get caught.” She didn’t ask him, “Are you okay?” And definitely not, “We need to talk.” Or, “How about maybe we shouldn’t have given you a gun, just a blunt, don’t get caught.” And then came the morning of the shooting. Ethan was in class when a teacher looked down at his math worksheet and froze because what he had drawn wasn’t just some random sketch to pass time.
It was a warning sign so big and so obvious it might as well have been written in neon lights. He had drawn a gun pointed at the words, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.” But that’s not all. There was a bullet with the words blood everywhere. And a figure lying dead next to the words, “My life is useless.” And at the very bottom, the world is dead.
Jesus, if that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what is. And so, the teacher immediately sends him to the principal’s office. Well, the school wasted no time in calling his parents, and they had a face-to-face meeting with the counselor. And do you know what Jennifer and James did when they saw their son’s drawings? Did they take him home, you wonder? Did they call a therapist? Maybe.
Did they even ask him if he needed help? No, they shrugged it off and left. And just like that, Ethan was sent right back to class. And less than 2 hours later, he pulled out the gun his parents gave him and started shooting. When Jennifer saw the news about an active shooter at Oxford High, she didn’t call 911.
She didn’t rush to the school. And she wouldn’t even check to see if Ethan was safe because she knew. At 1:22 p.m., 7 minutes after the first news report came out, she texted her son, “Ethan, don’t do it.” But Ethan had already reached the point of no return. And her husband at 1:37 p.m.
, James Crumbley called 911, but not to warn anyone. Instead, he just reported that their gun was missing. Because at that moment, their biggest concern wasn’t the kids Ethan had just murdered. It was trying to save themselves from facing the consequences. But well, that ship has already sailed because at that point, Jennifer and James Crumbley might as well have pulled the trigger alongside their son.
And when prosecutors had charged him with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, they made history, becoming the first parents in the US to be held criminally responsible for their son’s mass shooting. And do you think that by now after realizing their son had taken four innocent lives, they were consumed by guilt? Do you think they were ready to take responsibility to step up to face the consequences? No.
They withdrew $4,000 in cash, turned off their phones, and went into hiding in Detroit. For 2 days, the feds and US marshals hunted them down. They were finally caught in a locked room inside an art studio, pretending like they weren’t on the run. Well, they were arrested on the spot. April 9th, 2024.
Jennifer and James are both convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years. Jennifer is now serving her time at the Women’s Hiron Valley Correctional Facility. But even now, she’s still refusing to take responsibility. She says the gun wasn’t her fault, and she blames the school for not doing more.
She even said that she never saw any warning signs. But here’s the reality. She and her husband bought their son a gun. They ignored every single red flag and they left him at school when he was clearly in a crisis. And because of that, four students are dead. Earlier this year, Jennifer Crumbley requested a new trial. Her legal team is filing a motion arguing that the prosecution had made secret deals with key witnesses and that her conviction should be thrown out.
They also claimed that she shouldn’t have been held responsible for her son’s actions in the first place. There was a couple of times where Ethan had expressed anxiety over taking tests. Um, anxiety about what he was going to do after high school, but not not to a level where I felt he needed to go see a psychiatrist or a mental health professional.
But the judge denied her request. And now Jennifer’s spending the next decade in prison, exactly where she belongs. Because when you ignore these kind of warning signs, you don’t just ruin your own life, you destroy a lot of others. And sometimes there’s no going back.
