It’s the scoop no reporter would ever want.
A local newswoman uncovered a horrific personal story after rushing to cover last week’s shooting at a western Kentucky high school: the 15-year-old boy who had allegedly shot and killed two classmates was her own son.
Mary Garrison Minyard, editor of the Marshall County Daily Online, learned the terrible news while at the still-active scene.
She had raced to Marshall County HS in Benton, Ky., on Tuesday morning after word broke of an active shooter.
Only after she arrived did she learn the identity of the handgun-wielding suspect, according to the Louisville-based Courier Journal.
Minyard’s son, Gabe Parker, a sophomore at the school, was taken into custody at the scene.
He has initially been charged as a juvenile with two counts of murder and 12 counts of assault for the students who survived being shot.
He is being held at a juvenile jail a half hour from the school.
Assistant County Attorney Jason Darnall says he will seek to prosecute the boy as an adult.
Minyard, who divorced Parker’s father when the boy was 5 years old, has declined to comment. So have members of his father’s family.
Officials have yet to comment on what motivated Parker to allegedly open fire just before 8 a.m., as students arrived for school.
But the few details to emerge about Parker in the close-knit town of just 4,500 residents paint him as a shy, quiet red-head who loved fishing with his grandparents.
“Anything Grandma needed, he would get,” neighbor Allyn Hornick told the Courier Journal.
A few weeks ago, though, when she spoke to Parker at his grandparents’ house, he seemed anxious about school and a little depressed, Hornick said.
Classmates are still stunned he’s the suspect.
He kept to himself, and seemed “like a really good kid,” classmate Ashley Collie, 15, told the paper.
Recently, though, he’d begun talking about violence — and an interest in joining the Mafia, Collie told the paper.
Parker, who played the trombone for the school marching band, was well-liked by bandmates, said Jayson Roberts, whose son is a classmate.
Still, friends noticed a change in Parker after Christmas break — he seemed “snappy,” or short tempered, Roberts said.
By Tuesday, he was allegedly leveling his handgun to kill.
Several of his victims suffered gunshot wounds to the head, first responders said of Parker’s alleged rampage.