1998 Arkansas School Shooter Killed in Car Crash 21 Years After Attack
Drew Grant, 33, aka Andrew Golden, died after car hit in head-on collision Saturday night
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The Arkansas middle school shooter who fatally shot four fellow students and a teacher in 1998, has died in a car crash on a northeastern Arkansas highway.
21 years ago, Drew Grant, then known as Andrew Golden, shot up a school when he was just 11-years-old with his friend Mitchell Johnson, then 13.
The pair shot and killed an adult teacher and four children aged 11 and 12-year-old during the attack.
Authorities said that Grant, 33, was killed on Highway 167 near Cave City, Arkansas, on Saturday at about 9 pm when his car was hit in a head-on collision with another vehicle, KAIT reported.
Grant had been living in Jackson, Missouri after legally changed his name from Andrew Golden and was driving the car at the time of the crash.
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According to the Daily Mail, the driver of the second vehicle, identified as Daniel Petty, 59, of Essex, Missouri, was also killed in the crash, according to a State Police preliminary summary of the wreck.
Three other people, including two adults and a child, were injured and taken to hospitals.
Two of the injured victims were identified as Kathy Tanner, 59, and Stephanie Grant, 29, according to Fox 16.
I’m at the scene where Drew Grant aka Andrew Golden died in a crash last night near Sandtown. More details soon @Region8News pic.twitter.com/yDlEkGwXwn
— Miranda Reynolds (@MReynoldsKAIT) July 28, 2019
Arkansas State Police said that Petty's car drove left of the center-line, then crossed a turn lane and both northbound lanes before hitting Grant's car head-on.
Grant — then known as Golden — was 11 years old in 1998, when he and his friend, Mitchell Johnson, then 13, set off a fire alarm on March 24, 1998, and shot at people as they evacuated from Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Killed were 12-year-olds Paige Herring and Stephanie Johnson, 11-year-olds Brittney Varner and Natalie Brooks and teacher Shannon Wright.
Golden and Johnson were tried as juveniles and were expected to remain in custody until the age of 21, in accordance with Arkansas law at the time.
Johnson was released in 2005, and Golden was released in 2007.
Because they were tried as juveniles, their records were sealed.
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In 2017, a judge presiding over a lawsuit filed by the victims' families awarded them $150million in damages.
Part of the judgement prohibited the Golden and Johnson from profiting off the 1998 shooting.
Police said that they believed that Grant and Golden are the same person and that they have received identification and property from Grant's family members.
School teacher Wright's relatives, Mitch and Zane Wright, said in a statement to KAIT that "The news of Andrew Golden’s death today fills our family with mixed emotions as I’m sure it does with the other families and students of the Westside shooting.
"Mostly sadness. Sadness for his wife and son, sadness that they too will feel the loss that we have felt.
"To his family, we are so sorry for your loss.
"We are praying that his wife and child will make a full recovery."
