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University Gunman's Dark Side Emerging

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By ASHLEY M. HEHER and CARYN ROUSSEAU, The Associated Press

Published: February 17, 2008

DEKALB, Ill. - Steven Kazmierczak had the look of a boyish graduate student, except for the disturbing tattoos that covered his arms.

Professors and students knew him as a bright, helpful scholar, but his past included a stint in a mental health center. Many saw him as happy and stable, but he developed a recent interest in guns and was involved in a troubled, possibly abusive, on-again, off-again relationship.

What people initially told police about the Northern Illinois University shooter didn't add up, and now investigators are searching for answers to what triggered Thursday's bloody attack in which five students were killed and several more injured before Kazmierczak committed suicide.

Authorities questioned family and friends and tried to determine whether he had recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend.

One person who knew the couple, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, said their relationship was on-again, off-again and "really rocky." Kazmierczak was controlling, she said.

Kazmierczak, 27, whose father resides in Lakeland, had a history of mental illness and had become erratic in the past two weeks after he stopped taking his medication, said university Police Chief Donald Grady.

A former Chicago psychiatric treatment center employee said Kazmierczak had been placed there after high school by his parents. He used to cut himself and had resisted taking his medications, she said.

He spent more than a year at Thresholds-Mary Hill House in the late 1990s, former house manager Louise Gbadamashi said. His parents put him there after high school because he was "unruly" at home, she said.

Jason Dunavan, a tattoo artist in Champaign, said he spent hours as recently as last month creating tattoos for Kazmierczak. They included an image of a macabre doll in the horror movie "Saw" riding a tricycle through a pool of blood with images of bleeding cuts in the background.

Friday, police went through belongings Kazmierczak left at a DeKalb motel in search of clues. Kazmierczak paid cash for his room three days before the shootings, signing his name only as "Steven," the hotel manager said. Items found in his room included empty cigarette cartons and discarded containers of energy drinks and cold medicine. The refrigerator was stocked with more energy drinks.

Authorities found a duffel bag, with the zippers glued shut, that Kazmierczak had left in the room, said DeKalb police Lt. Gary Spangler.

He would not comment on what was found in the bag.

The Chicago Tribune, citing law enforcement sources, reported investigators found ammunition inside.
Kazmierczak also left behind a laptop, which investigators seized.

The discoveries added to puzzles about Kazmierczak, a graduate student who had studied at Northern Illinois University but transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Kristen Myers, an associate professor of sociology who knew Kazmierczak, said he didn't fit the image of a loner or outcast. "Profiling would not have worked with Steve. People would let him into their home," she said. "People feel so bad that we didn't know he was suffering."

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