East Carter High School shooting

The East Carter High School shooting occurred on January 18, 1993 in Grayson, Kentucky, United States. The incident was when 17-year-old Gary Scott Pennington walked into an English classroom and fatally shot his teacher Deanna McDavid and head custodian Marvin Hicks, and held classmates hostage for fifteen minutes before surrendering to police.

The shooting

On Monday, January 18, 1993, Scott Pennington took a .38-caliber revolver that was owned by his father, and brought the weapon to school by concealing it in a duffel bag-type backpack. Predominant U.S. school districts were closed for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, although the Carter County Public Schools were still opened.

At approximately 2:45 p.m. he entered his seventh-period English class and shot at his teacher Deanna McDavid. His first shot missed, with McDavid saying, "Scott, what are you doing!", to which Pennington said, "shut up, bitch". The second shot hit her in the forehead, a shot that was fatal. Students inside her class believed this was an act that McDavid arranged for her drama club. The school custodian, Marvin Hicks, and social studies teacher Jack Calhoun entered the classroom to investigate the sounds. Pennington fatally shot Hicks in the abdomen, and aimed his pistol at Calhoun without shooting him. Witnesses reported that Hicks pushed a female student away from himself before he was shot. Mandy Morse, a student inside the classroom, had written a farewell letter to her family due to fearing she would be killed. Some students recalled Pennington threatening to kill other students, while others recall him telling the class he will commit suicide.

He then held his classmates hostage before he allowed two students to leave the classroom shortly after. He then allowed students to leave the room in groups of two every minute, and allowed the last five hostages to leave the classroom at 3:01 p.m. He himself walked outside of the classroom, where he surrendered to two police officers waiting in the hallway adjacent to the classroom.

Victims

• Deanna McDavid née Mullins was born on January 19, 1944, in Olive Hill, Kentucky, and graduated at Olive Hill High School in 1962. She enrolled Morehead State University as an English major, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966. She worked as a high school teacher in Akron, Ohio for 14 years, before returning to Carter County in 1981. McDavid became a senior English teacher at East Carter High School, and was also director of the school drama club. She lived in Grayson, Kentucky with her husband Daniel, and their three children – son Brent, daughters Lisa and Angela. Her daughter, Lisa McDavid, is currently a Science teacher at ECHS (East Carter High School).

• Marvin Hicks was born in 1941 in Olive Hill, Kentucky, and was an honor student at Olive Hill High School before dropping out. Hicks worked as a coal miner with his father for at least twenty years, and decided to become custodian at East Carter High School due to disliking coal mining. He was employed as head custodian at East Carter High School since 1983, nine years before the shooting, and resided in Olive Hill with his wife Margaret Callihan.

Perpetrator and motives

The identity of the shooter was originally protected at the time of his arrest, and was soon revealed to be 17-year-old Gary Scott Pennington. He had lived with his family in Elliott County, Kentucky his entire childhood, before moving to Carter County in August 1992. It was reported that Pennington had expressed frustration with moving to Carter County. His family was living in poverty in the years and months prior to the shooting, as the family could not afford plumbing and lacked sufficient electricity. His father, Gary Pennington, was an unemployed former laborer and coal miner who received monthly disability pensions, due to a coal mining accident. His mother Esta was an unemployed homemaker.

Pennington had excelled academically since elementary school, participating in the academic team since the fifth grade and winning the Eastern Kentucky regional science competition in the seventh grade. He attended Elliott County High School for grades nine to eleven, and taught himself calculus during his freshman year. After moving to Carter County, he joined the academic team at East Carter High School, however withdrew due to bullying by fellow students. He also developed a grudge against his English teacher Mrs. McDavid after she gave him a 'C' as his midterm grade. The midterm grade was for an essay Pennington had written about the Stephen King novel Rage; the content of the essay concerned McDavid, given that some of his other writing likewise focused on "violence, death, and dying" (McDavid even apparently brought her concerns before her colleagues).Actually, the information regarding Scott's reading of the novel "Rage" is in error. Scott never read the book until after his incarceration. He said that the false information piqued his curiosity, and he read the novel while in prison.

Afterward, he said he did not dislike Mrs. McDavid, but that his intention was to kill any two people in order to become eligible for the death penalty.

Imprisonment

A grand jury indicted Pennington on two counts of second-degree murder and 22 counts of kidnapping on June 15, 1993. Due to the difficulty of seating an impartial jury, the trial venue was moved twice, first to Morgan County and then to Johnson County.

Opening arguments in his trial began on February 9, 1995. Pennington entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill, and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years on February 28, 1995. He is currently imprisoned at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Kentucky.