Rachel Joy Scott

“Monday the 16th, [1998]

Dear Mark, thank you so much. You didn’t need to write me back. That painting said it all. All I needed was for someone to share my pain, someone to feel my heart hurt. You did something most wouldn’t do, you helped me carry the burdens of others.

I stayed home from school today. I was going to kill myself. I was going to bring my car into the garage, close the door and let the motor run. I got as far as the driveway and then I turned off the car. I was going to live for just one more day so I could say goodbye to you.

I got there, [at her church group] and when we started praise and worship, I lifted my hands and closed my eyes because I wanted you to think I was okay so that when i died, you wouldn’t blame yourself. Then Mike … pulled that story and I lost it. Finally I was on the altar crying harder than I ever have before and Lori Johnson was holding me. I repented and made the decision to live. I feel so fulfilled. There is a God and I’m going to serve him for the rest of my life.

Mike was right, something happened. God saved me from suicide. He did it through Mike, through Lori and through you. Your love gave me reason to live just for one more day, and his love [meaning God’s] gave me a reason to live for one whole life.

But that’s not the end. I’m working at Subway again and I had been smoking pot and ciggarettes [sic]. I went in on my way home and I broke every cig I had. I told the guy, Brandon, that was working, that I gave my life back to God and that I am clean…then I told him he should do the same. He said maybe.

This is a day of redemption, revelation. I will never be the same again. Thank you Mark.

Thank you so much. I love you. Rachel Joy”

• First journal reading/conversation between him and Rachel at 8:45.
• Second journal reading at 36 minutes, but back story beforehand is at 33 minutes. (Here he confirms Rachel’s suicidal thoughts here as well as pot smoking, which are two topics always speculated before).

The Smoke in the Room (April 2nd & 3rd, 1999)

“It was a play about a creative girl who was negatively judged by her outward appearance. But inside, she was an extremely loving, giving, and kind person.”

“Isaiah Shoels faced challenges most kids never have to deal with. When he underwent heart surgery at 7 months to repair a malformed valve in his left ventricle, doctors warned that he might not live past age 5. Instead, Shoels went on to play in a youth football league and to wrestle for Columbine, lifting weights to pack 120 pounds of solid muscle onto his diminutive 4'11" frame. “He took those stumbling blocks and made stepping stones out of them,” says his father, Michael, who owns a small record company. As one of 16 African-Americans at Columbine, Shoels, a senior—and others of his five siblings—had heard the occasional racial taunt, and it seems to have been his color that marked him for death. “They targeted Isaiah,” says his father, who heard from eyewitnesses how his son died. “When they ran into the school, they started hollering, ‘Where’s that little n—-r?’ ” After they found Shoels in the library, they shot him in the head. “Isaiah was color-blind,” says his father.”

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