The story of one of America's first school shooters, a brilliant loner, and what he has become in the 23 years since. It's also a story of what we. have become.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN,
Times Senior Correspondent

Illustrations by Times artist
ROSSIE NEWSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 11, 2001

On Dec. 16, 1980, less than three weeks after his 18th birthday, Needham earned his high school equivalency diploma.

Under close supervision, he began taking classes at the University of Michigan. He had decided to major in math.

By now, Needham struck most people as polite and cooperative, if not talkative. He got along well with the Green Oaks staff. He rarely, if ever, mentioned his mother, but his father visited regularly. Their relationship seemed cordial.

A big question remained: Would Roger Needham explode again someday?

The staff tried to provoke him by making comments, trying to pick fights. Needham sometimes became irate, but he never lost control. The shootings had happened during the difficult adolescent years, when almost anything might spark a violent response from a mixed-up kid. Now Needham was growing up, and the staff concluded that the chances he would ever react the same way were almost zero.

In 1981, shortly before Needham's 19th birthday, representatives from the state, the training center and the court system met to determine whether he should be released. There was some concern he had never shown remorse, and there were doubts he ever would. But the reports were positive. After an initially rocky period, Needham had been a model inmate. The experts agreed: It was time to let him go.

Four years after committing murder, Roger Needham was free.

From now on, most evidence of his crime and his tormented teenage years would be filed away in confidential juvenile records. He slipped into anonymity, continuing his studies at the University of Michigan, one of 36,000 students.

In August 1984, he was awarded a bachelor of science degree "with highest distinction." Four months later, he earned his master's degree in mathematics.

He rented an apartment in Ann Arbor. Ken Willis, one of his counselors at the training school, ran into him one day on the street.

"Hey, how you doing?" Willis asked, glad to see him again.

They had the briefest of conversations. Needham mentioned only that he was in school and said nothing about Green Oaks.

That's a secret he wants to keep, Willis thought to himself.

By 1990, Needham was in his late 20s, the school shooting a dozen years earlier a dim memory even for people in Lansing. In Ann Arbor, an hour's drive away, it was as though it had never happened.

Donald Higman, a professor in the University of Michigan's highly rated math department, knew nothing of Needham's background when he began working with him on his doctoral thesis.

What he did know was that Needham was gentle and likable, with a good sense of humor. He was not like some mathematicians, so inwardly focused as to be almost autistic.

Still, Needham was a private sort, an intellectual, delving into areas the professor found different and original. His interest lay in a highly theoretical form of mathematics that took ideas from computer science. To the lay person, it was nearly incomprehensible, but it would have important applications with the growing need for security on the Internet.

Needham and his adviser met at least once a week. In some cases, the adviser must push the doctoral candidate to develop ideas or theories original enough to warrant a Ph.D. In Needham's case, the original concepts were there; the challenge was getting him to express them clearly.

All in all, Higman considered Needham an unusual student. He had novel ideas and was willing to fight for them.

On May 2, 1992, the 29-year-old was awarded his Ph.D.

He was now Dr. Roger E. Needham.

Kevin Jones could never forget the bullet groove in his head. It itched whenever the clouds closed in over Lansing.

"It's going to rain," Jones would say.

Life was not turning out well for Needham's surviving victim.

After the shootings, administrators at Everett High suggested that Jones pursue some kind of alternative education. But Jones, who had a genius-level IQ, thought such programs carried a stigma. They're for stupid kids and burnouts, he told his brother Tony. At age 16 he dropped out.

He worked in maintenance for the Detroit Free Press in Lansing. Then he took a job with a company that treated steel. Finally, like so many other blue-collar workers in Michigan, he went with an outfit that made accessories for the auto industry. He joined the Teamsters and became active in the union.

For a year or two after the shootings, Kevin, Tony and their closest friends would hang out in Kevin's bedroom and plot revenge. They all hated Needham, the Nazi punk who had murdered Kevin's best friend and nearly killed Kevin himself.

Tony knew that his brother would never actually do anything to hurt Needham. But he knew, too, that Kevin could never forgive him, especially after hearing through the grapevine that Needham had enrolled at the University of Michigan.

"That's great," Kevin would say. "The bastard kills my friend and shoots me and he gets to go to college, and I can't even finish high school."