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Portrait of a killer
DEKALB | Those closest to Steve Kazmierczak saw 2 sides -- a gifted,
dedicated student, but beset by behavioral problems
February 17, 2008
Steve Kazmierczak had gone more than a dozen years without talking to his
godfather, Richard Grafer.
Until about a month ago. That's when Grafer got a call from his 27-year-old
godson with the boy-next-door face.
The victims of Thursday's shooting at Northern Illinois University have been
identified as Daniel Parmenter, Ryanne Mace, Gayle Dubowski, Catalina Garcia
and Julianna Gehant. The shooter, who killed himself after the rampage, was
a former NIU graduate student.
The latest: Steven Kazmierczak sent a girlfriend a package with a note
saying not to open it before Thursday. Ominously, the note said, "and you'll
know why."
"It was like he was reaching out for someone to talk to, someone he could
confide in," Grafer said during an interview at his Des Plaines home. "We
talked for two hours. He told me he was in the Army and got out. He didn't
say why. He knew I was an ex-Marine. He thought we could swap war stories."
In the following weeks, they would chat about reconnecting, grabbing dinner,
maybe going fishing. They were going to get together, they decided, this
weekend.
But even as they made plans, Kazmierczak was buying a 12-gauge shotgun and a
9mm Glock pistol from a Champaign gun dealer -- part of an arsenal he used
Thursday to kill five students at Northern Illinois University, his
undergraduate alma mater in DeKalb, before killing himself.
It was the last contradiction in a puzzling life.
Kazmierczak was born and raised in Elk Grove Village, played saxophone in
his high school band and was a member of the chess club and "Peer Helpers"
group there. He went on to win academic honors at NIU, where he described
himself as "committed to social justice" in a successful campaign to become
vice president of the school's Academic Criminal Justice Association.
But about midway through Elk Grove High School, Kazmierczak also began
battling behavioral problems that worried his parents, landed him in special
treatment programs and required him to take mood-stabilizing drugs,
according to people close to him.
Peter Rachowsky, 27, a former Elk Grove Village resident, described
Kazmierczak as "pretty much my first and only friend" during junior high and
their first two years of high school. Around their junior year, he said,
Kazmierczak began exploring satanism and white-power movements, leading
Kazmierczak's parents to take him to specialists who put him on drugs that
caused his weight to fluctuate greatly.
"He started to identify more with hatred-type stuff," Rachowsky recalled.
"It seemed like the medicine made the whole situation worse."
'No red flags'
After graduating from high school in 1998, Kazmierczak left Elk Grove
Village to get treatment for his problems, Rachowsky said.
Public records show Kazmierczak spent time in Thresholds-Mary Hill House in
Chicago. A former employee said his parents placed him there after high
school because he had become unruly at home. "He told me they put him in a
rehabilitation school," Grafer said. "He said it was terrible there, all the
fighting."
Kazmierczak eventually went into the Army in September 2001. But he was
discharged in February 2002 for an ''unspecified'' reason, an Army spokesman
said.
"I knew he was on some medication," said Nancy Czarnik, a cousin who grew up
with Kazmierczak's late mother and baby-sat Kazmierczak and his sister. "For
what and how long, I don't know."
NIU Police Chief Donald Grady last week described Kazmierczak as "a fairly
normal, unstressed person. . . . No red flags." He did not give a motive for
the rampage by Kazmierczak, who enrolled in graduate courses at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign last year after transferring from
a graduate program at NIU in sociology.
But there are signs pointing to why Kazmierczak recently became unhinged.
In June 2006 -- a month after he graduated from NIU with a bachelor's degree
in sociology, and his sister Susan earned a graduate degree from the U. of
I. -- their mother, Gail, was diagnosed with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. She died that September at
58.
More recently, his live-in girlfriend in Champaign had broken up with him,
his godfather said.
"He said all of a sudden she decided she wanted somebody else," Grafer said.
"She told him it was enough. She'd had it."
However, they continued living together.
Last Sunday, Kazmierczak told Grafer he had a new girlfriend at NIU.
"I said, 'What's her name?' He said, 'I don't want to tell you now. I'll
tell you when I see ya Saturday. I'll show you a picture.' I said, 'On
Saturday, we'll have a great time.' That was the last time I talked to him,"
Grafer said.
All the while, authorities said, Kazmierczak recently had stopped taking his
medications and had been behaving erratically.
Despite Kazmierczak's history of psychological problems, Grafer and Czarnik
still can't fathom how he silently walked onto a stage at NIU's Cole Hall,
where he once worked as a teaching assistant, and began shooting at about
150 students during a geology lecture.
"This is just such a devastating situation for everyone," Czarnik said.
"It's so unbelievable."
'A great, fun kid'
Kazmierczak was born at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in August 1980 and
attended Salt Creek Elementary and Grove Junior High in Elk Grove Village
before moving on to Elk Grove High School, Czarnik said. He maintained a "B"
average in high school, District 214 officials said.
"He was a great, fun kid," Grafer said. Kazmierczak was a normal boy who
liked fishing, exploring in the forest preserves, going to Kiddieland and
playing video games -- childhood memories Kazmierczak talked about a lot
during their recent conversations.
"He said he remembered the first day I took him out fishing," Grafer said.
"I gave him a fishing pole. He broke it. I said that's OK, we got more. I
gave him a couple more poles, and he dropped one in the lake, and we had to
swim for it."
Grafer, 66, said he lost contact with Kazmierczak when his godson was in
sixth or seventh grade after having a falling-out with Kazmierczak's father,
Robert, a retired U.S. Postal Service worker who now lives in Lakeland, Fla.
It is unclear exactly when Kazmierczak began attending NIU. University
officials said they had yet to confirm when he enrolled. Czarnik said it was
after Kazmierczak left the Army.
Those who knew Kazmierczak as a graduate student described him as
gregarious, passionate and gifted. He co-wrote two academic papers with Jim
Thomas, an NIU professor emeritus of sociology. One focused on "self-injury"
in prison.
Thomas had met Kazmierczak about five years ago, when Kazmierczak took one
of his classes. The relationship grew from there.
"He stood out,'' Thomas said. "He moved from student to assistant to
friend.''
Kazmierczak told him about his "psychological issues," but Thomas said he
saw nothing that would indicate he was capable of Thursday's rampage.
"His behavior was no different than that of any other student," Thomas said.
"He was gentle, he was calm, he was polite. He was just a normal guy."
"I saw nothing in e-mails or on the phone that indicated anything'' was
wrong, he said.
Thomas also said that -- despite the comments Kazmierczak made to his
godfather about his girlfriend -- he is not so sure the couple had broken
up.
An undergraduate student at NIU recalled having Kazmierczak as a teaching
assistant in a sociology class.
"He actually took the time to sit down with you," said Stephanie Delhotal,
22, of DeKalb. "Literally, he would sit down next to you with your homework
and show you different ways to solve the problem."
Kazmierczak left NIU in spring 2007, transferring to the U. of I.'s School
of Social Work. Kazmierczak told Grafer he wanted to get his master's degree
in sociology so he could work with mentally disturbed children.
Professor Jan Carter-Black had taught Kazmierczak this semester and served
as his academic adviser at the U. of I.
"He was engaging, he was participative, his attendance was good," she said.
"He exhibited the kinds of behaviors I expected from my students -- my good
students."
Last fall, Kazmierczak dropped to part-time status at the U. of I. to take a
job Sept. 24 as a guard at Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana, about
80 miles from Champaign. But Kazmierczak lasted just two weeks there, said
Doug Garrison, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Corrections.
Bought guns from Champaign shop
"He just did not come back to work one day," Garrison said, adding that
Kazmierczak didn't have any disciplinary problems.
While he was going to the U. of I. last year, Kazmierczak started building
his cache of weapons, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives.
Less than two weeks ago, on Feb. 6, he bought a Remington 12-gauge Model 870
shotgun and a Glock 9mm pistol. He picked them up Feb. 9, authorities said.
Grafer said Kazmierczak asked him what kind of gun he should buy, and
Grafer, a collector, warned him against the Glock. Kazmierczak told him he
bought it anyway.
Kazmierczak bought two other weapons, a 9mm Sig-Sauer and a Hi-Point
..380-caliber pistol, on Aug. 6 and Dec. 30.
Sources said he got all of the weapons from Tony's Guns & Ammo in Champaign,
a shop behind a home in a working-class neighborhood on a residential
street. On the front door of the yellow shop is a sticker that says, "Guns
Save Lives."
Kazmierczak had a valid Illinois firearm owner's identification card, which
is required for any Illinois resident who buys or possesses firearms,
authorities said.
ATF Special Agent Kevin Cronin said Kazmierczak "was not prohibited in any
way from purchasing firearms and, as far as we know, [made] a lawful
purchase."
In addition to the guns, Kazmierczak bought two empty Glock ammunition
magazines and a Glock holster from Eric Thompson, a Green Bay-based Internet
gun dealer who also sold a weapon to Seung-Hui Cho, the 23-year-old Virginia
Tech senior who killed 32 people at the Blacksburg, Va., university and
wounded 30 last April before killing himself. It was the worst mass shooting
in modern U.S. history.
On Thursday, shortly after 3 p.m., Kazmierczak walked into the lecture hall
in DeKalb. He never said a word. He took a deep breath, raised his shotgun
and killed Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Elmhurst; Catalina Garcia, 20, of
Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; Julianna Gehant, 32, of the
Mendota area, and Gayle Dubowski, 20, of Carol Stream. He also wounded 16
others before committing suicide.
He had carried the shotgun in a guitar case and hid the handguns and
ammunition under his coat, police said.
Investigators said they found 48 bullet casings and six shotgun shells on
the stage.
Kazmierczak's sister posted a note on the door of her Urbana home Friday
night, expressing her family's condolences to the families of all of the
victims.
"In addition to the loss of innocent lives, Steven was a member of our
family," her note read. "We are grieving his loss, as well as the loss of
life resulting from his actions.''
Earlier in the day, the gunman's father, Robert Kazmierczak, came out of his
central Florida home to talk briefly with reporters.
''This is a very hard time for me,'' he said as he threw his arms up and
wept.
Rachowsky, Kazmierczak's boyhood friend, said the sight of Robert
Kazmierczak on TV brought back memories.
"I remember being with his father sitting at the Dairy Queen with him and
Steve eating sundaes, and now I see him crying on the news," Rachowsky said.
"It's very heartbreaking."
Portrait of a killer
DEKALB | Those closest to Steve Kazmierczak saw 2 sides -- a gifted,
dedicated student, but beset by behavioral problems
February 17, 2008
Steve Kazmierczak had gone more than a dozen years without talking to his
godfather, Richard Grafer.
Until about a month ago. That's when Grafer got a call from his 27-year-old
godson with the boy-next-door face.
The victims of Thursday's shooting at Northern Illinois University have been
identified as Daniel Parmenter, Ryanne Mace, Gayle Dubowski, Catalina Garcia
and Julianna Gehant. The shooter, who killed himself after the rampage, was
a former NIU graduate student.
The latest: Steven Kazmierczak sent a girlfriend a package with a note
saying not to open it before Thursday. Ominously, the note said, "and you'll
know why."
"It was like he was reaching out for someone to talk to, someone he could
confide in," Grafer said during an interview at his Des Plaines home. "We
talked for two hours. He told me he was in the Army and got out. He didn't
say why. He knew I was an ex-Marine. He thought we could swap war stories."
In the following weeks, they would chat about reconnecting, grabbing dinner,
maybe going fishing. They were going to get together, they decided, this
weekend.
But even as they made plans, Kazmierczak was buying a 12-gauge shotgun and a
9mm Glock pistol from a Champaign gun dealer -- part of an arsenal he used
Thursday to kill five students at Northern Illinois University, his
undergraduate alma mater in DeKalb, before killing himself.
It was the last contradiction in a puzzling life.
Kazmierczak was born and raised in Elk Grove Village, played saxophone in
his high school band and was a member of the chess club and "Peer Helpers"
group there. He went on to win academic honors at NIU, where he described
himself as "committed to social justice" in a successful campaign to become
vice president of the school's Academic Criminal Justice Association.
But about midway through Elk Grove High School, Kazmierczak also began
battling behavioral problems that worried his parents, landed him in special
treatment programs and required him to take mood-stabilizing drugs,
according to people close to him.
Peter Rachowsky, 27, a former Elk Grove Village resident, described
Kazmierczak as "pretty much my first and only friend" during junior high and
their first two years of high school. Around their junior year, he said,
Kazmierczak began exploring satanism and white-power movements, leading
Kazmierczak's parents to take him to specialists who put him on drugs that
caused his weight to fluctuate greatly.
"He started to identify more with hatred-type stuff," Rachowsky recalled.
"It seemed like the medicine made the whole situation worse."
'No red flags'
After graduating from high school in 1998, Kazmierczak left Elk Grove
Village to get treatment for his problems, Rachowsky said.
Public records show Kazmierczak spent time in Thresholds-Mary Hill House in
Chicago. A former employee said his parents placed him there after high
school because he had become unruly at home. "He told me they put him in a
rehabilitation school," Grafer said. "He said it was terrible there, all the
fighting."
Kazmierczak eventually went into the Army in September 2001. But he was
discharged in February 2002 for an ''unspecified'' reason, an Army spokesman
said.
"I knew he was on some medication," said Nancy Czarnik, a cousin who grew up
with Kazmierczak's late mother and baby-sat Kazmierczak and his sister. "For
what and how long, I don't know."
NIU Police Chief Donald Grady last week described Kazmierczak as "a fairly
normal, unstressed person. . . . No red flags." He did not give a motive for
the rampage by Kazmierczak, who enrolled in graduate courses at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign last year after transferring from
a graduate program at NIU in sociology.
But there are signs pointing to why Kazmierczak recently became unhinged.
In June 2006 -- a month after he graduated from NIU with a bachelor's degree
in sociology, and his sister Susan earned a graduate degree from the U. of
I. -- their mother, Gail, was diagnosed with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. She died that September at
58.
More recently, his live-in girlfriend in Champaign had broken up with him,
his godfather said.
"He said all of a sudden she decided she wanted somebody else," Grafer said.
"She told him it was enough. She'd had it."
However, they continued living together.
Last Sunday, Kazmierczak told Grafer he had a new girlfriend at NIU.
"I said, 'What's her name?' He said, 'I don't want to tell you now. I'll
tell you when I see ya Saturday. I'll show you a picture.' I said, 'On
Saturday, we'll have a great time.' That was the last time I talked to him,"
Grafer said.
All the while, authorities said, Kazmierczak recently had stopped taking his
medications and had been behaving erratically.
Despite Kazmierczak's history of psychological problems, Grafer and Czarnik
still can't fathom how he silently walked onto a stage at NIU's Cole Hall,
where he once worked as a teaching assistant, and began shooting at about
150 students during a geology lecture.
"This is just such a devastating situation for everyone," Czarnik said.
"It's so unbelievable."
'A great, fun kid'
Kazmierczak was born at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in August 1980 and
attended Salt Creek Elementary and Grove Junior High in Elk Grove Village
before moving on to Elk Grove High School, Czarnik said. He maintained a "B"
average in high school, District 214 officials said.
"He was a great, fun kid," Grafer said. Kazmierczak was a normal boy who
liked fishing, exploring in the forest preserves, going to Kiddieland and
playing video games -- childhood memories Kazmierczak talked about a lot
during their recent conversations.
"He said he remembered the first day I took him out fishing," Grafer said.
"I gave him a fishing pole. He broke it. I said that's OK, we got more. I
gave him a couple more poles, and he dropped one in the lake, and we had to
swim for it."
Grafer, 66, said he lost contact with Kazmierczak when his godson was in
sixth or seventh grade after having a falling-out with Kazmierczak's father,
Robert, a retired U.S. Postal Service worker who now lives in Lakeland, Fla.
It is unclear exactly when Kazmierczak began attending NIU. University
officials said they had yet to confirm when he enrolled. Czarnik said it was
after Kazmierczak left the Army.
Those who knew Kazmierczak as a graduate student described him as
gregarious, passionate and gifted. He co-wrote two academic papers with Jim
Thomas, an NIU professor emeritus of sociology. One focused on "self-injury"
in prison.
Thomas had met Kazmierczak about five years ago, when Kazmierczak took one
of his classes. The relationship grew from there.
"He stood out,'' Thomas said. "He moved from student to assistant to
friend.''
Kazmierczak told him about his "psychological issues," but Thomas said he
saw nothing that would indicate he was capable of Thursday's rampage.
"His behavior was no different than that of any other student," Thomas said.
"He was gentle, he was calm, he was polite. He was just a normal guy."
"I saw nothing in e-mails or on the phone that indicated anything'' was
wrong, he said.
Thomas also said that -- despite the comments Kazmierczak made to his
godfather about his girlfriend -- he is not so sure the couple had broken
up.
An undergraduate student at NIU recalled having Kazmierczak as a teaching
assistant in a sociology class.
"He actually took the time to sit down with you," said Stephanie Delhotal,
22, of DeKalb. "Literally, he would sit down next to you with your homework
and show you different ways to solve the problem."
Kazmierczak left NIU in spring 2007, transferring to the U. of I.'s School
of Social Work. Kazmierczak told Grafer he wanted to get his master's degree
in sociology so he could work with mentally disturbed children.
Professor Jan Carter-Black had taught Kazmierczak this semester and served
as his academic adviser at the U. of I.
"He was engaging, he was participative, his attendance was good," she said.
"He exhibited the kinds of behaviors I expected from my students -- my good
students."
Last fall, Kazmierczak dropped to part-time status at the U. of I. to take a
job Sept. 24 as a guard at Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana, about
80 miles from Champaign. But Kazmierczak lasted just two weeks there, said
Doug Garrison, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Corrections.
Bought guns from Champaign shop
"He just did not come back to work one day," Garrison said, adding that
Kazmierczak didn't have any disciplinary problems.
While he was going to the U. of I. last year, Kazmierczak started building
his cache of weapons, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives.
Less than two weeks ago, on Feb. 6, he bought a Remington 12-gauge Model 870
shotgun and a Glock 9mm pistol. He picked them up Feb. 9, authorities said.
Grafer said Kazmierczak asked him what kind of gun he should buy, and
Grafer, a collector, warned him against the Glock. Kazmierczak told him he
bought it anyway.
Kazmierczak bought two other weapons, a 9mm Sig-Sauer and a Hi-Point
..380-caliber pistol, on Aug. 6 and Dec. 30.
Sources said he got all of the weapons from Tony's Guns & Ammo in Champaign,
a shop behind a home in a working-class neighborhood on a residential
street. On the front door of the yellow shop is a sticker that says, "Guns
Save Lives."
Kazmierczak had a valid Illinois firearm owner's identification card, which
is required for any Illinois resident who buys or possesses firearms,
authorities said.
ATF Special Agent Kevin Cronin said Kazmierczak "was not prohibited in any
way from purchasing firearms and, as far as we know, [made] a lawful
purchase."
In addition to the guns, Kazmierczak bought two empty Glock ammunition
magazines and a Glock holster from Eric Thompson, a Green Bay-based Internet
gun dealer who also sold a weapon to Seung-Hui Cho, the 23-year-old Virginia
Tech senior who killed 32 people at the Blacksburg, Va., university and
wounded 30 last April before killing himself. It was the worst mass shooting
in modern U.S. history.
On Thursday, shortly after 3 p.m., Kazmierczak walked into the lecture hall
in DeKalb. He never said a word. He took a deep breath, raised his shotgun
and killed Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Elmhurst; Catalina Garcia, 20, of
Cicero; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; Julianna Gehant, 32, of the
Mendota area, and Gayle Dubowski, 20, of Carol Stream. He also wounded 16
others before committing suicide.
He had carried the shotgun in a guitar case and hid the handguns and
ammunition under his coat, police said.
Investigators said they found 48 bullet casings and six shotgun shells on
the stage.
Kazmierczak's sister posted a note on the door of her Urbana home Friday
night, expressing her family's condolences to the families of all of the
victims.
"In addition to the loss of innocent lives, Steven was a member of our
family," her note read. "We are grieving his loss, as well as the loss of
life resulting from his actions.''
Earlier in the day, the gunman's father, Robert Kazmierczak, came out of his
central Florida home to talk briefly with reporters.
''This is a very hard time for me,'' he said as he threw his arms up and
wept.
Rachowsky, Kazmierczak's boyhood friend, said the sight of Robert
Kazmierczak on TV brought back memories.
"I remember being with his father sitting at the Dairy Queen with him and
Steve eating sundaes, and now I see him crying on the news," Rachowsky said.
"It's very heartbreaking."
