Young murder suspect's journal fixated on violence
By Associated Press
Published March 20, 2004
MIAMI - A 14-year-old charged with killing a classmate kept a journal that fixated on violence and scrawled the words "will become a serial killer" at the bottom of a printout on mass killers, documents released Friday show.
Forty-one pages of Michael Hernandez's jottings, doodles and Internet downloads were released by the State Attorney's Office following a public records request by Miami television stations.
Hernandez was indicted as an adult on a first-degree murder charge in the slashing death of fellow eighth-grader Jaime Rodrigo Gough before classes Feb. 3.
The victim, described as a good student who liked baseball and played the violin and flute, was found bleeding to death in a boys' restroom at Southwood Middle School in suburban Palmetto Bay. His throat was slashed.
Defense attorney Richard Rosenbaum said the writings did not look like the work of an ordered mind. He would not say whether he would pursue an insanity defense or make Hernandez's mental competency an issue. Ed Griffith, spokesman for prosecutors, would not comment.
The note "will become a serial killer" was on a copy of an Internet article on criminal profiling, "Mass murderers, spree killers and serial murderers." The final five pages in the 41-page journal bore titles but no contents: "weapons," "weapon ideas," "names," "body count" and "what was done." Another page featured drawings of two stylized crosses, a bound figure under a suspended, spinning blade and a knife with a serrated blade. A serrated knife was found in Hernandez's backpack when he was arrested.
Hernandez also wrote lists of violent movies and video games; kept instructions for making a bomb and Molotov cocktails; and wrote "White Power" under a swastika, the documents indicate.
"You will be a serial killer and mass murderer, stay alone, never forget God ever, have a cult and plan a mass kidnapping for new world ... be an expert thief etc., how many weapons ... do killings around the world," the notes say.
Hernandez also listed daily tasks, including bodybuilding, work on computers, homework and Bible reading. He wrote reminders to "everyday get everything perfect/straight" and to "praise, worship and pray to God everyday."
The only possible sentence for Hernandez if he is convicted of first-degree murder at trial is life in prison. Proposals to allow other sentences have been made since Lionel Tate was freed from a life term for killing a 6-year-old playmate when he was 12.
Rosenbaum won the appeal overturning Tate's conviction.
