Secret Life Of Ohio Shooter T.J. Lane: Inside The Mind Of A Teenage Killer
March 1 2012, Published 4:00 a.m. ET
By Debbie Emery - Breaking Celebrity News Reporter
As news emerged on Wednesday morning that prosecutors plan to charge the Ohio school shooter, 17-year-old T.J. Lane, as an adult not a juvenile, there are countless questions about the troubled teen as all those affected by his rampage try to understand what would drive him to open fire on innocent students.
As Breaking Celebrity News previously reported, Lane went on a shooting spree at Chardon High School that began around 7.30 a.m. on Monday in the cafeteria and resulted in the death of three students, Daniel Parmerto, Russell King Jr., 17, and Demetrius Hewlin, 16, and two others injured.
Described as a quiet kid who kept a low profile until February 27, details of Lane’s personal life are finally beginning to trickle out and they paint a picture of a disturbed childhood full of violence and neglect.
A little known fact about Lane is that he didn’t even attend the Chardon school that he attacked, and was instead a student at Lake Academy in nearby Willoughby, which is an alternative school for at-risk youth, many of whom have struggled with addiction or suffered abuse at home.
Like many of the students there, home life for T.J. was far from peaceful with his father, Thomas Lane Jr., boasting a history of domestic violence against women, according to court records. He had been arrested numerous times for incidents that showed increasing levels of ferocity, and may well have been abusive against his son as well.
On numerous occasions Lane was warned by law enforcement to stay away from T.J. and his mother Sarah A. Nolan, reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer and between 1995 and 1997 both parents charged the other with domestic violence against each other.
They subsequently split up after which Thomas Lane went on to be charged with assaulting a police officer, and then served prison time for attempting to suffocate his next wife after he held her head under running water, then bashed it into the wall so hard that it left a dent.
Estranged from his father and his half-twin sisters, T.J. lived with his grandparents and remained close to his aunts, who sat by his side in court on Tuesday for the juvenile detention hearing.
Two years ago, T.J. landed in custody from his own actions when he appeared at the Geauga County Juvenile court, but because he was only 15 at the time all records relating to his alleged offense are sealed.
Recollections of T.J. from people in the community have been vague so far: “He seemed like a nice boy,"