Promising lives end too soon

Shootings claim lives of 12 students, one teacher, and 2 suspects

Camera staff and wire service

A basketball coach, an aspiring actor, and an aspiring rapper were among those killed in Tuesday's shooting spree.

The Daily Camera and wire services confirmed through family and friends that the dead included: teacher and coach William "Dave" Sanders and students Rachel Scott, John Tomlin, Cassie Bernall, Corey Depooter, Isaiah Shoels, Lauren Townsend, Matthew Kechter and Dan Mauser.

The dead also included another female and three males.

Among the 15 killed were the two suspects Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Sanders, 48, is being hailed by students as a hero. A computer teacher, coach of the girl's basketball team and a grandfather of five, Sanders was shot twice in the chest during Tuesday's massacre, but according to students managed to shepherd students down a hallway and away from danger.

"He dedicated his entire life to teaching," said Rich Jarmon, Sanders' nephew, who said that Sanders coached the track team and the women's basketball team at the school. "Recently he had talked of retirement, but he said how hard it would be to leave the school."

On Tuesday, Jarmon said, Sanders was substituting for a science teacher. "Anytime anyone needed a favor," Jarmon said, "he was the first one there. If you needed a hand, he was always there."

Sanders were shot trying to save students, according to reports. He was shot twice in the chest.

Friends of Scott, a Columbine junior, on Wednesday surrounded a stark visual reminder in Clement Park across from the high school — Scott's red Acura Legend still parked in the school's lot.

A phone book, videocassette and umbrella could be seen through the back window.

With candles, flowers and stuffed animals blanketing the car, those who knew her wept uncontrollably at times. Many offered stories about her.

"The first thing that comes to mind was she was an awesome, Christian girl," said 20-year-old Jamie Marrs, who attended a church group with Scott. Marrs said that Scott, who was interested in theater, had just gotten her hair cut short to play a role in a school play.

Boys who knew Scott said she was cute and not very tall and talked often about her interest in theater. "She was full of life," said Tyler Jackman, a 17-year-old Columbine senior.

Mimi Cafarchia, who knew Scott and her younger brother, Craig — he also attended Columbine but survived the attack — said Scott was someone who cared greatly about others.

Reflecting about her friend's last moments, Cafarchia said, "She was the type of girl that she was probably trying to reach out and comfort anyone else."

Also among the dead was Tomlin, 16, who moved from Waterford to the Denver suburb of Littleton about four years ago but had returned to Wisconsin for a couple weeks each year to visit, a relative told a television station in Milwaukee. "He was a born-again wonderful Christian boy and would be an example to anyone," his aunt, Patty Bernau of Waterford, Wis., told the station. "You could not have asked for a better kid, more moral and more loving and happy-go-lucky."

Tomlin reportedly had signed into the library of the Colorado school Tuesday and didn't appear at any medical facilities later.

By chance, his mother had asked him where he would want to be buried if he died, and he said in Wisconsin, Bernau said. The family planned to honor that wish.

Shoels' father, Michael, of Littleton, said his son had "had a conflict" with the presumed gunmen last year and that he believed his son was a target even before he was shot to death in the library at Columbine High School.

After the shootings, there were accounts that the gunmen had sought out black students and athletes, but Shoels, who is black, may have been shot because of the old conflict, his father said.

Michael Shoels said that his son, an 18-year-old senior at Columbine whom he described as a jock with a passion for weight lifting, had had a dispute with the gunmen last year, but he did not elaborate on what the dispute was about or why he believed it flared up again, this time in such a violent way.

"The kids that got away explained it to us," Shoels said. "They said he was one of the main targets because they hunted him down. He wasn't in the main area. He was in the library. They came through the cafeteria, they hunted him down."

Shoels said that his son wanted to be a record-company executive like one of his role models, Master P, the rapper and recording executive whose No Limit label pumps out hit albums and direct-to-video movies. Master P had also been trying to play professional basketball, scrimmaging with the Charlotte Hornets until he was cut from the team in February.

"Master P, he took all of these artists and created an empire," Shoels said. "That was something Isaiah wanted to do in his lifetime. He most definitely had the smarts to do it. He was studying music contracts."