Year After Shootings, Wounds Remain Open Memorial Service Held For Teacher; Girl Struggles To Regain Use Of Arm

It’s been a year since four people were shot in a junior high school classroom, and answers are still hard to find.

The youth charged in the killings, 15-year-old Barry Loukaitis, sits in jail awaiting his May 12 murder trial.

The families of teacher Leona Caires and 14-year-old students Manuel Vela and Arnold Fritz, who were killed in the Feb. 2, 1996, rampage, still mourn the loss of their loved ones.

Natalie Hintz, the 14-year-old girl who was wounded, struggles to recover and now attends school in another town.

Stephen Caires went to his wife’s gravesite on Sunday, and brought carnations, and a few roses - Leona’s favorite combination of flowers.

Leona, 49, a popular math teacher, was the first to die that snowy day.

“I miss my wife,” Stephen, a school administrator, said Sunday. “I will continue to miss my wife until I die.

“She was an outstanding human being,” he said from his Coeur d’Alene home. “We had 28-1/2 lovely years. I was really fortunate.”

There was a church memorial service for the slain teacher Sunday, Caires said.

Hintz, 14, was the only one of the four people shot who survived. But her right arm was so badly shattered she cannot hold a pencil or tie her shoes.

“This is a very sad day for me,” she told KHQ-TV of Spokane. “And also very frustrating.”

Hintz was shot once in the back and suffered extensive shoulder, right arm and liver problems. Doctors say she may never recover full use of her arm.

“I want to prove them wrong,” Hintz said.

“It’s changed the family so much,” she said of the shooting. “We look at things a lot different than we used to.”

She also hopes no one forgets the tragedy.

“I try to be the bright spot, but sometimes it’s really hard,” Hintz said.

Her family has filed a lawsuit against Moses Lake schools over the shootings. Natalie now attends high school in Ephrata.

“The wound is still very much open,” said Manuel Vela, father of the victim of the same name. “We are still very much in pain.

“We are able to talk better about it now without breaking down in tears,” he told the Tri-City Herald.

A sign outside Frontier Junior High School on Sunday said: “Frontier Remembers.” Flowers were placed at the base of the sign.

Moses Lake was abruptly changed by the events of Feb. 2, 1996.

Witnesses said that is the day when Loukaitis - dressed in a black trench coat - entered his ninth-grade algebra class armed with a rifle.

Loukaitis had more than 70 rounds of ammunition, and it is unclear what plans he had for the other students in the classroom.

That’s because teacher Jon Lane risked his life at gunpoint to wrestle the weapon away from the teen-ager after the four people were shot, and held him until police arrived.

Loukaitis is charged as an adult with three counts of aggravated first-degree murder, plus attempted murder and numerous counts of kidnapping. He has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, and if convicted faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

His trial has been moved to King County in hopes of finding an impartial jury.

Terry and JoAnn Loukaitis, parents of the youth, have filed for divorce. Their history of marital problems has been mentioned in court hearings as one source of the stress that may have triggered the rampage.

They are also named as defendants in several lawsuits filed by victims.

There are other changes. Security guards roam the halls of both the Moses Lake school district’s junior high schools.

No one is sure what prompted the shootings. Some contend Loukaitis was the victim of bullying, or was distressed by his parents’ marital problems. Grant County prosecutor John Knodell contends Loukaitis may have been influenced by a Stephen King novel about a teen-ager who kills two teachers.

Ten months after the shootings, tragedy replayed itself when Aaron Harmon, 14, killed his mother and stepsister and then shot himself to death in Moses Lake.

Harmon was a cousin of Arnold Fritz, one of the February victims. Fritz and Harmon were close friends, and Harmon had been described as deeply upset by Fritz’ death.