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

The rehabilitation of Roger Needham was complete. His past a well-kept secret, a man who had once shot students was now being paid to teach them.

Needham stayed in St. Louis for the 1992-93 academic year. The department's secretary found him friendly and outgoing, liked by all.

The following year, Needham jumped to the academic big time: He became a visiting professor in the mathematics department of City College of New York.

The flagship of the 21 schools that make up the city's public university system, CCNY is known as the "Harvard of the Proletariat." It has produced more Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners than Harvard itself; alumni include Secretary of State Colin Powell, Dr. Jonas Salk and Ira Gershwin.

Needham joined the faculty on a temporary basis for $35,742 a year, with no benefits, perks or time counted toward tenure. Still, it was an honor just to be hired by a school that had once rejected the great British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell.

During the 1993-94 school year, Needham taught classes and worked on a research project supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The project involved writing software for "infinity groups," an endeavor that wed Needham's interests in mathematics and computer sciences.

Noted City College mathematician Gilbert Baumslag and other colleagues liked Needham and found him extremely hard-working. That made it all the more perplexing when, out of the blue, he quit.

Baumslag and others heard he had joined a computer company, perhaps in the financial services field. From time to time they talked about him, but nobody in the math department heard from him again.

Since 1997, students and guns have become a horrifying leitmotif of latter-day America.

October 1997. A 16-year-old in Pearl, Miss., killed his mother, then went to his high school and shot nine students, two fatally. He was sentenced to life in prison.

December 1997. A 14-year-old killed three students and wounded five at a high school in West Paducah, Ky. He pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

March 1998. Two boys, 11 and 13, killed five and wounded 10 during a false fire alarm at a middle school in Jonesboro, Ark. Both boys were convicted of murder and can be held until they are 21.

Over the next 13 months, there would be at least three more outbreaks of violence, culminating in the massacre at Columbine High in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999. Two students killed 12 people and wounded 23. Then they committed suicide.

With the carnage have come demands for ever-harsher punishment.

Last year, a 16-year-old boy in Conyers, Ga., wounded six classmates. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

In Florida, a 13-year-old who shot a teacher last spring is scheduled for trial in April. He could get life in prison.

Daniel McLellan, the man who prosecuted Roger Needham, is now general counsel for the Michigan Department of Civil Service. He still has strong feelings about the way society deals with its youngest criminals.

[Times photo: Susan Taylor Martin] To discourage trouble, Everett relies on metal detectors, surveillance cameras and posters like this.

"I think the problem with the whole justice system is that "Lock 'em up and throw away the key' is the whole mentality now. While I'm in favor of protecting citizens, just putting people in prison under terrible circumstances can't ordinarily be good, and if it's not good for a 30-year-old armed robber, it really can't be good for a 15-year-old murderer.

"It's very, very difficult because in large measure, we don't have the resources nor, I think, the will to work on rehabilitation. We have really swung in the direction of punitive incarceration, and while sometimes it's necessary, I don't think it's necessary for very many."

McLellan remembers how he and his boss agonized over what to do with Needham. He can't imagine any prosecutor in today's political climate deciding, as they finally did, to treat a 15-year-old killer as a juvenile.

"Almost certainly if this happened tomorrow he'd be prosecuted as an adult, convicted of first-degree murder and spend the rest of his life in prison.

"The whole milieu has changed. In those days we didn't think of 15-year-olds as evil, hard-nosed criminals for whom there is no possibility of getting better. We still thought of kids as kids. My view has always been that just growing up solves a lot of problems. You'd be surprised at how growing up can ameliorate bad behavior."

McLellan lost track of Needham years ago. He was happy to hear that he had gone on to college, gotten a Ph.D. and returned to the classroom as a teacher.

Says the ex-prosecutor: "Wish him well for me."