May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann 30 went on a rampage that ended with two dead, A little boy, Nicholas Corwin 8 and herself by suicide. The rampage happened in Winnetka, an affluent suburb of Chicago, resulting in an uproar over gun control and higher security in schools.

Laurie Wasserman, born in the late fifties to Norman and Edith Wasserman seemed to have an unremarkable childhood. She was an awkward teenager until her parents helped transform her with plastic surgery. She emerged beautiful and brought attention from many suitors.

After graduating from New Trier East High School, she attended the University of Arizona for four years but never graduated. Not really after an education but instead looking for a wealthy man to marry. She thought she had found one in a premed student. Letting her schoolwork slide, figuring she would be married to a doctor, she was devastated when her "fiance" ended the relationship. Sadly, her obsession for this man would go on for several years. With very little interest in continuing her education there, she would return home to the Chicago area in 1980.

After returning home, she would occasionally attend adult education classes, never to finish. One fateful day, while working a summer job as a cocktail waitress at Green Acres Country Club in Northbrook, she met Russell Dann, a son of a wealthy Highland Park family. He was soon smitten by the beautiful, dark, haired woman. She seemed a little shy but signs of her deteriorating mental state didn't start coming out until after their September of 1982 wedding.

Starting a new life in a beautiful $230,000 Highland Park home, wedded bliss wasn't to last. Russell started to notice little quirks about his new bride. She had no interest in decorating her new home or even cleaning it. When she did try to help by doing the laundry, she would fold it up sopping wet and put away in drawers, leaving them to mold. Makeup was kept in the microwave and cash was thrown in the back seat of her car like trash. Russell would come home after work to find the house a mess and dinner never waiting, while his wife spent her days watching tv.

While the marriage would last several years, her husband would begin to notice her "quirks" worsening. She started doing little rituals such as tapping her foot on the ground at every stoplight and compulsive hand washing. She soon became a recluse not even liking to leave for her husband's social engagements. As much as Russell loved his wife, she needed more help than he was able to give.

By May 1987, they were divorced following a separation, leaving Laurie with an $125,000 cash settlement.

Following the divorce, she moved back with her parents to Glencoe. Her behavior grew increasingly erratic, obsessed with personal hygeine, compulsive handwashing, and an aversion to being touched.

Laurie first came to the attention of the police in 1985 marital disputes.

In 1986, someone stabbed Russell Dann while sleeping, missing his heart by an inch. Although a store clerk identified Laurie as buying an ice pick a few days before the stabbing, she was not seen entering or leaving the apartment of her husband. With nothing but circumstancial evidence, it came down to his word against hers. He failed a polygraph and she was well versed in playing the victim. Charges were dropped much to her husband's chagrin.

About the same time as this incident, a Tucson phycisian (her ex college boyfriend) started receiving harrassing phone calls and letters. The phone calls included death threats to the now married doctor and his family. She also claimed to be pregnant with his child even though she hadn't see in him in five years. The harrassment wouldn't end until his lawyer sent a letter to Laurie's parents asking that they control their daughter.

In January 1987, Laurie decided to try something new, babysitting. She posted flyers at a local grocery store and the Glencoe Library. Seemingly nice and a little shy, one mother didn't hesitate to hire Laurie. She also recommended her to friends.

The trusting parents began to notice things wrong after she would leave from a babysitting job. Leather sofas were slashed, rugs cut up, 2 electric garage door openers went missing. Dann of course, denied everything. After one couple reported it to the police, they were told of other reports. But with only circumstancial evidence, no charges were filed.

In the summer of 1987, Laurie decided to have yet another new start. Her father sublet a dorm room on the northwestern campus. After complaints of leaving raw meat in sofa cushions to rot and stuffing students boxes with garbage, the university reached her father. He persuaded her to return home.

Returning to babysitting, she continued to hack up furniture and stole hundreds of dollars worth of food. Her father covering for her as he had been for years, would pay restitution for damages.

The final unraveling of her sanity would begin in January of 1988. She moved to Madison, Wisconsin to live near the campus of the University of Wisconsin. She was enrolled as a guest student and was welcome to monitor classes. She rarely left the dorm and became known as the elevator lady. She would ride up and down the elevator for all hours of the night, randomly pressing buttons.

She began to leave raw meat in the cushions of the tv room. She was regarded strangely by her peers for wearing gloves constantly and never touching metal. She would appear naked in the hallways and turned her dorm room into a public health hazard. Garbage and rotting food were strewed everywhere.

In March, she would be arrested for shoplifting. Released on a $200 bond, she was accepted into a first offenders program to avoid jail time. Later that month, one of the dorm rooms in her building was set ablaze. She was suspected but there was no proof.

In April, she began making more death threats to Tucson. Arizona officials contacted the FBI. The FBI then contacted Illinois authorities.On May 13th, the FBI notified Madison police, that she might own a gun. She did. In actuality, she owned three guns. Pistols that she obtained legally. Police tried to confiscate the weapons but her father refused to hand them over, claiming his daughter needed them for protection from her ex-husband.

May 14th, which marked the end of the semester, a fellow student found his clothes slashed and books destroyed. Laurie was implicated. Later that night, she was found by a resident advisor in the garbage room, asleep in a garbage pile, naked in the fetal position. She was sweating profusely and covered with a garbage bag. The following day, when FBI came to question her about the death threats, she was gone.

Four days later, she appeared at the home of one of her babysitting clients in Glencoe. She was told she wouldn't be needed as a babysitter because the family was moving to New York.

Apparently this family wasn't aware of her instability because when she asked if she could take their sons to a fair the next morning, they agreed. She stayed up late that last night preparing for her big day. She made rice crispy snacks and prepared packaged juice drinks, apparently injecting them with arsenic, a syringe was later found in her room with traces of the poison.

She awoke early on May 20th, delivering her venomous treats to a couple of frat houses and six homes in Glencoe, Highland Park, and Winnetka. Arriving at her employers house to pick up the boys, she gave them tainted milk. The boys thought it tasted funny and threw it out while Laurie wasn't looking. After picking up the boys, Dann went on to a school and daycare center where her ex-sister-in-law had children enrolled. Setting a fire at Ravinia School with gas in a plastic bag, then to the daycare center with a can of gasoline where she was chased off by a daycare worker.

Returning the children to their home, she brought them down to the basement, where their mother was doing laundry. Laurie mumbled something about having to leave and within secs of her departure, the basement stairs were aflame. The family managed to escape by breaking a small window and crawling through to safety.

By the time, the basement fire was started, Laurie was well on her way to Hubbard Woods Elementary School. Armed with two handguns at the school.

She first shot a little boy in the stomach, in a school washroom. Next she headed to a second grade classroom where she began shooting wildly through the classroom. Nicholas Corwin, age 8 was killed instantly. She critically wounded five others.

Fleeing the school, she crashed her car into a tree on a one way street. Stripping her bloodsoaked shorts, she proceeded to run away wearing only a plastic bag tied around her waist.

She reloaded her .32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver and crossed a back yard to enter the unlocked door of Ruth Andrews and her family. She told them that she had just been raped and shot her attacker.

She claimed the police were after her for shooting the rapist and it was a misunderstanding. She held the family at bay for over six hours. Using their phone to call her mother who tried to tell her to turn herself in, that everything would be ok.

After speaking with her, Phillip Andrews 20 motioned to his family to leave, which Laurie allowed. The brave young man tried to wrestle the gun away from her to be shot in the chest. He staggered out of the house to collaspe on the lawn. Laurie fled to an upstairs bedroom to put the .32 into her mouth killing her instantly.

The aftermath of her rampage left seven people shot, one small boy dead, and several non fatal poisonings. With no suicide note, it's hard to say what finally caused her final snap. She had been seeing pychiatrists for many years and was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and thought to have "erotomania", a disorder that is a pathological attachment to men she wrongly believed were in love with her.

Autopsy result revealed lithium (manic depressant) and Anafranil (anti depressant). Both drugs are sometimes believed to cause violence in patients. The truth is, her parents should have her institutionalized years before.

Laurie Wasserman Dann (c. 1958 - 20 May 1988) was an American murderer. Dann grew up in Glencoe, an affluent northern suburb of Chicago. She was the daughter of accountant Norman and Edith Wasserman.

In 1985 she was suspected of attacking her husband Russell Dann in his sleep, by stabbing his chest with an icepick. The case was dropped, and the couple divorced in the same year.

In 1988 she started to make nuisance phone calls that turned into death threats to an ex-boyfriend she dated 18 years earlier. She was already under investigation by the FBI for extortion as she was demanding money in return for halting the phone harassment.

Shortly before the shooting she delivered marshmallow and rice cereal snacks tainted with arsenic to Alpha Tau Omega and Psi Upsilon fraternity houses at Northwestern University in Evanston. Several students were treated for poisoning.

On 20 May 1988, the 30-year-old Dann walked into a second grade classroom at Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, Illinois carrying three pistols and began shooting children, killing an eight-year-old boy - Nicholas Corwin - and wounding five others before fleeing. She entered a nearby house where she shot and wounded a 20-year-old man before killing herself.

Subsequent blood tests revealed that at the time of the killings, Dann was on a psychiatric drug of a class clearly shown to cause unexplained hostile and violent behavior.

There were also reports that, just before the shootings, Dann mailed as many as 24 packages of tainted food and juice to friends and acquaintances in Wisconsin and California and several suburbs north of Chicago. (United Press International - May 26, 1988)

A made-for-TV movie, Murder of Innocence, was broadcast by CBS on November 30, 1993. The movie was based on the book of the same name by Eric Zorn, but the names of the characters were changed. Valerie Bertinelli was cast as Laurie Wade, a character based on Laurie Dann.  

Laurie Dann (née Wasserman) (18 October 1957 - 20 May 1988) was an American murderer. She shot and killed a boy and wounded two girls and three boys in a school in Winnetka, Illinois, then took a family hostage and shot a man before killing herself.

Early life

Dann was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in Glencoe, an affluent northern suburb of Chicago, the daughter of accountant Norman and Edith Wasserman.

Laurie was described as frail, timid, withdrawn, but attractive. She was dated widely in her teenage years and graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois in 1975.

While in high school she earned poor grades, but still was able to attend Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, but better grades at the end of her first year allowed her to transfer to the University of Arizona with the goal of becoming a teacher. She began dating a pre-med student and the relationship quickly became serious, with Laurie's behavior becoming possessive, dependent and demanding.

In 1980, with the relationship failing, Laurie moved back to her parents' home and transferred to Northwestern University to complete her degree, though she dropped out of all the courses she began and never graduated. She subsequently worked as a clerical worker and waitress in various short-lived jobs. She met and married Russell Dann, an executive in a successful insurance broking firm in September 1982, but the marriage was quickly in trouble as Russell Dann and her family noted signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and other strange behavior, including leaving trash around the house. Laurie saw a psychiatrist for a short period, who identified her childhood and upbringing as a cause of her problems.

Laurie and Russell Dann separated in October 1985, and the divorce negotiations were acrimonious, with Laurie claiming that Russell was violent and abusive. In the following months, the police were called to investigate various incidents including the harassment of Russell, his family and friends by hang-up phone calls.

In April 1986, Laurie Dann accused Russell of breaking into and vandalizing her parents' house where she was then living. Shortly after, Laurie purchased a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum, telling the salesman that she needed it for self-protection. The police were concerned about her gun ownership and unsuccessfully tried to persuade Laurie and her family that she should give up the gun. She was being followed periodically by a psychiatrist but this did not affect her right to own a gun.

In August 1986 Laurie contacted her ex-boyfriend who was by then doing a residency at a hospital, and claimed she had had a child by him. After he refused to believe her, the hospital in which he now worked as a doctor received an anonymous phonecall claiming to have been raped by him in the emergency room.

In September 1986, Russell Dann reported that he had been stabbed in his sleep with an icepick, and accused Laurie Dann of the crime, though he had not actually seen his attacker. The police, bolstered by a medical report which suggested the injury might have been self-inflicted, Russell Dann's abrasive attitude towards the police and his failed lie detector test, decided not to lay charges against Laurie Dann.

Harassing hang up phone calls continued to Russell and his family, and Laurie was arrested for calls made to Russell's sister, though charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.

Just before the divorce in April 1987, Laurie accused Russell Dann of having raped her with a steak knife. Once again there was contradictory evidence: there were no physical signs that the story was true but despite the wild claims, Laurie passed two lie detector tests.

In May 1987, Laurie Dann accused Russell of placing an incendiary device in her home. No charges were laid against Russell for either alleged event. Laurie's parents believed her claims and supported and defended her throughout. By this time, Laurie Dann was being followed by another psychiatrist for obsessive-compulsive disorder and a 'chemical imbalance', but he told the police that he did not feel that she was suicidal or homicidal.

Last year

Laurie Dann worked as a babysitter, and some employers were happy with the care she provided their children. Others made complaints to the police about damage to their furniture, and the theft of food and clothes. Despite the complaints no charges were laid, though Laurie Dann's father paid reparations in one case.

In the summer of 1987, Dann sublet a university apartment in Evanston, Illinois. Once again, strange behavior was noted, including riding up and down in elevators for hours, wearing rubber gloves to touch metal, and leaving meat to rot in sofa cushions. She took no classes, but made friends within fraternities on campus and dated some of the fraternity brothers.

In the fall of 1987, Dann claimed to have received threatening letters from Russell and that he had sexually assaulted her in a parking lot, but her story was not believed by the police. A few weeks later she purchased a .32 Smith and Wesson revolver.

Her condition deteriorating, Dann and her family sought specialized help and she moved in November 1987 to Madison, Wisconsin to live in a student residence while being followed by a psychiatrist who specialized in obsessive-compulsive disorder. She had already begun taking clomipramine, a new drug for OCD, and her new psychiatrist increased the dosage, adding lithium carbonate to reduce her mood swings, and initiating behavioral therapy to work on her phobias and ritualistic behaviors.

Despite the intervention, strange behaviors continued, including riding elevators for long periods, changing TV channels repetitively, and obsessions with good and bad numbers. There were also concerns about whether she was bulimic. Dann purchased a .22 automatic Beretta at the end of December 1987, and in March 1988 stopped attending her appointments with the psychiatrist and behavior therapist.

At about the same time, she began to make preparations for the attacks. She stole books from the library about poisons, as well as diluted arsenic and other chemicals from a lab. She also shoplifted clothes, and wigs for disguising herself, and was arrested for theft on one occasion. Her psychiatrist and her father attempted to persuade her to enter hospital as an inpatient, but she would not agree.

Dann continued to make large numbers of nuisance, hang-up phone calls to her former in-laws, friends and babysitting clients, and these now escalated to death threats. Her ex-boyfriend and his wife also received dozens of threatening calls, and in May 1988 a letter, later confirmed to have been sent by Laurie Dann, was sent to the hospital administration where he now worked, again accusing him of sexual assault.

Since the phone calls were across state lines, the FBI became involved, and a federal indictment against Dann was prepared. However, the ex-boyfriend, fearful of publicity,[1] and concerned about Dann getting bail and then attempting to fulfill her threats against him, decided to wait until other charges were laid in Illinois.

In May 1988, a janitor found her lying in a fetal position inside a garbage bag in a trash room. This precipitated a search of her room, and her departure back to Glencoe.

Attacks

During the days before May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann prepared rice cereal snacks and juice boxes poisoned with the diluted arsenic she had stolen in Madison. She mailed some to a former female friend, ex-babysitting clients, her psychiatrist, Russell Dann and others. In the early morning of May 20, she personally delivered snacks and juice "samples" to other friends, acquaintances and families for whom she had babysat, some of whom had not seen her for years.

Other snacks were delivered to Alpha Tau Omega, Psi Upsilon and Kappa Sigma fraternity houses at Northwestern University in Evanston. Notes were attached to some of the deliveries. The drinks were often leaking and the squares unpleasant tasting, so little was actually consumed. In addition, the arsenic was highly diluted and as a result nobody was made seriously ill.

At about 9 am, the 30-year-old Dann arrived at the home of former babysitting clients in Winnetka, Illinois to pick up the youngest two children. The family had just told Dann that they were moving away.

Instead of taking them on the promised outing, she took them to a local school, Ravinia Elementary School, attended by her former sister-in-law's two sons, and left them in the car while she entered the school and tried to detonate a fire bomb inside. The small fire she set was quickly blown out by a teacher. She then drove to a local daycare attended by her ex-sister-in-law's daughter, but was prevented by staff from entering the building with a plastic can of gasoline. Returning her two passengers to their home, she offered them some arsenic-poisoned milk, but the boys spat it out as it tasted strange. Once at their home, she used gasoline to set fire to the house, briefly trapping the mother and her two children in the basement.

She then drove three and a half blocks to the Hubbard Woods School carrying three handguns. She wandered into and observed a second grade classroom for a short while, then left and finding a boy in the corridor, pushed him into the boys' washroom and shot him with a .22 semi-automatic Beretta pistol. Her .357 Smith and Wesson Magnum revolver jammed as she tried to fire it at two other boys in the washroom, and she threw it into the washbasin along with the spare ammunition she had brought. The boys ran out of the washroom and raised the alarm.

Dann then re-entered the second grade classroom where the students were working in groups on a test. She ordered all the children into the corner of the room, but the teacher refused, and attempted to disarm Dann, managing to unload the Beretta in the struggle. Dann drew a .32 Smith and Wesson from the waistband of her shorts and shot at several groups of the students. She killed eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin, and wounded two girls and two boys before fleeing in her car.

Dann was prevented from leaving the area by closed roads due to a funeral cortege. She abandoned her car and, taking off her bloodstained shorts, tied a blue garbage bag around her waist. Together with her two remaining guns she made her way through some woods before reaching the house of the Andrews family. She entered the house and met a mother and 20-year old son who were in the kitchen. Dann claimed that she had been raped and had shot the rapist in the struggle.

The Andrews were sympathetic and tried to convince her that she need have no fear of the police since she had acted in self-defense. Mrs. Andrews provided her with some of her daughter's pants to wear. While she was putting them on, Philip Andrews was able to pick up and pocket the Beretta. He suggested that she call her family, and she agreed, calling her mother and telling her that she had done something terrible and that the police were involved. Philip took the phone and explained about the rape and shooting and suggested that Mrs. Wasserman come to pick up Laurie, but according to Philip Andrews, Mrs. Wasserman said that she could not come as she did not have a car.

After Mr. Andrews arrived, they continued to argue that Dann should give up the gun. Dann called her mother again and this time, Mr. Andrews spoke to Mrs. Wasserman and asked her to persuade Dann to give up the gun. While Dann spoke again to her mother, Mrs. Andrews left the house and alerted the police. Mr. Andrews told Dann that he was not staying if she did not put down the gun, and also left the house, but Dann ordered Philip Andrews to stay.

Just before noon, seeing the police advancing on the house, she shot him in the chest, but he managed to escape out the back door before collapsing and being rescued by the police and ambulance personnel. The house surrounded, Dann went upstairs to a bedroom. The Wassermans and Russell Dann were brought to the house, and at about 7:00 pm, an assault team entered the house while Mr. Wasserman attempted to get her attention with a bullhorn. The police found her body in the bedroom: she had shot herself in the mouth.

Despite the severe injuries that some had received, all the wounded eventually recovered. One victim from the school, a girl who had very severe internal injuries, received innovative emergency surgery and was lucky to survive. The wounded, the other children in the school and their parents received extensive support to cope with the psychological after-effects of the attacks.

Members of the community, and in particular Philip Andrews, became involved in gun-control issues. Philip Andrews gave interviews about gun-control from his hospital bed, became active in local and state gun-control organizations and executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.

The incident also created a debate about the criteria for committing mentally ill to mental health facilities against their will. Some favored the involuntary commitment of a person who was determined to be mentally ill and incapable of making informed decisions about treatment, while others, including civil libertarians, opposed the idea. "It would be a shame if we cut back on the civil liberties of literally millions of mentally ill people because of the occasional bizarre incident," said Benjamin Wolf, staff counsel for the ACLU of Illinois.

Investigations were made difficult by the Wassermans' refusal to be interviewed by the police or to allow access to her psychiatric records, though the latter were eventually obtained by court order. The night of her death, the Wassermans only allowed a very brief search of her bedroom, and subsequently cleaned it up, removing potential evidence.

The police were criticized for not freezing her room as part of the crime scene. However, two newspaper clippings were found among Dann's possessions after her death. One described a man who randomly killed two people in a public building. The other described a depressed young man who had attempted to commit suicide in the same way that Laurie was to do: he survived and discovered that his brain injury had cured him of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Others have noted that she targeted people who had "disappointed" her in some way, including her ex-husband, her former sister-in-law (through the firebombing attempts at their schools/daycare), her ex-boyfriend and his wife, the family who was moving away, as well as former friends and babysitting clients.

Others blamed the actions of her family in defending and protecting her in spite of signs of her deteriorating mental health. The parents of the shooting victims sued the Wasserman family for damages.

In his book "The Myth of Male Power", author Warren Farrell suggested Laurie Dann's actions were an example of women's violence against men. He claimed, erroneously, that Dann's victims had only been boys and men, and that she had burned down a Young Men's Jewish Council, burned two boys in a basement, shot her own son and had alleged that an eight-year old had raped her. Men's rights activists have repeated the errors.

References in popular culture

A made-for-TV movie, Murder of Innocence, was broadcast by CBS on November 30, 1993. The movie was based on the book of the same name by Eric Zorn, but the names of the characters were changed. Valerie Bertinelli was cast as Laurie Wade, a character based on Laurie Dann.

The American death metal band Macabre wrote and recorded a song about Dann, titled "Hey Laurie Dann". It was recorded on the Gloom album.

Laurie Dann

May 20, 1988: Laurie Dann, age 31; In Winnetka, Illinois; Dann walked into a second grade classroom carrying three pistols and began shooting innocent little children. She killed one, wounded six, and then killed herself. Autopsy reports revealed that her body contained high amounts of Anafranil [by Norvatis] and Lithium.

May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann 30 went on a rampage that ended with two dead, A little boy, Nicholas Corwin 8 and herself by suicide. The rampage happened in Winnetka, an affluent suburb of Chicago, resulting in an uproar over gun control and higher security in schools.

Laurie Wasserman, born in the late fifties to Norman and Edith Wasserman seemed to have an unremarkable childhood. She was an awkward teenager until her parents helped transform her with plastic surgery. She emerged beautiful and brought attention from many suitors. After graduating from New Trier East High School, she attended the University of Arizona for four years but never graduated. Not really after an education but instead looking for a wealthy man to marry. She thought she had found one in a premed student. Letting her schoolwork slide, figuring she would be married to a doctor, she was devastated when her "fiance" ended the relationship. Sadly, her obsession for this man would go on for several years. With very little interest in continuing her education there, she would return home to the Chicago area in 1980.

After returning home, she would occasionally attend adult education classes, never to finish. One fateful day, while working a summer job as a cocktail waitress at Green Acres Country Club in Northbrook, she met Russell Dann, a son of a wealthy Highland Park family. He was soon smitten by the beautiful, dark, haired woman. She seemed a little shy but signs of her deteriorating mental state didn't start coming out until after their September of 1982 wedding. Starting a new life in a beautiful $230,000 Highland Park home, wedded bliss wasn't to last. Russell started to notice little quirks about his new bride. She had no interest in decorating her new home or even cleaning it. When she did try to help by doing the laundry, she would fold it up sopping wet and put away in drawers, leaving them to mold. Makeup was kept in the microwave and cash was thrown in the back seat of her car like trash. Russell would come home after work to find the house a mess and dinner never waiting, while his wife spent her days watching tv. While the marriage would last several years, her husband would begin to notice her "quirks" worsening. She started doing little rituals such as tapping her foot on the ground at every stoplight and compulsive hand washing. She soon became a recluse not even liking to leave for her husband's social engagements. As much as Russell loved his wife, she needed more help than he was able to give. By May 1987, they were divorced following a separation, leaving Laurie with an $125,000 cash settlement.

Following the divorce, she moved back with her parents to Glencoe. Her behavior grew increasingly erratic, obsessed with personal hygeine, compulsive handwashing, and an aversion to being touched. Laurie first came to the attention of the police in 1985 marital disputes. In 1986, someone stabbed Russell Dann while sleeping, missing his heart by an inch. Although a store clerk identified Laurie as buying an ice pick a few days before the stabbing, she was not seen entering or leaving the apartment of her husband. With nothing but circumstancial evidence, it came down to his word against hers. He failed a polygraph and she was well versed in playing the victim. Charges were dropped much to her husband's chagrin. About the same time as this incident, a Tucson phycisian (her ex college boyfriend) started receiving harrassing phone calls and letters. The phone calls included death threats to the now married doctor and his family. She also claimed to be pregnant with his child even though she hadn't see in him in five years. The harrassment wouldn't end until his lawyer sent a letter to Laurie's parents asking that they control their daughter.

In January 1987, Laurie decided to try something new, babysitting. She posted flyers at a local grocery store and the Glencoe Library. Seemingly nice and a little shy, one mother didn't hesitate to hire Laurie. She also recommended her to friends. The trusting parents began to notice things wrong after she would leave from a babysitting job. Leather sofas were slashed, rugs cut up, 2 electric garage door openers went missing. Dann of course, denied everything. After one couple reported it to the police, they were told of other reports. But with only circumstancial evidence, no charges were filed.

In the summer of 1987, Laurie decided to have yet another new start. Her father sublet a dorm room on the northwestern campus. After complaints of leaving raw meat in sofa cushions to rot and stuffing students boxes with garbage, the university reached her father. He persuaded her to return home.

Returning to babysitting, she continued to hack up furniture and stole hundreds of dollars worth of food. Her father covering for her as he had been for years, would pay restitution for damages.

The final unraveling of her sanity would begin in January of 1988. She moved to Madison, Wisconsin to live near the campus of the University of Wisconsin. She was enrolled as a guest student and was welcome to monitor classes. She rarely left the dorm and became known as the elevator lady. She would ride up and down the elevator for all hours of the night, randomly pressing buttons. She began to leave raw meat in the cushions of the tv room. She was regarded strangely by her peers for wearing gloves constantly and never touching metal. She would appear naked in the hallways and turned her dorm room into a public health hazard. Garbage and rotting food were strewed everywhere. In March, she would be arrested for shoplifting. Released on a $200 bond, she was accepted into a first offenders program to avoid jail time. Later that month, one of the dorm rooms in her building was set ablaze. She was suspected but there was no proof.

In April, she began making more death threats to Tucson. Arizona officials contacted the FBI. The FBI then contacted Illinois authorities.On May 13th, the FBI notified Madison police, that she might own a gun. She did. In actuality, she owned three guns. Pistols that she obtained legally. Police tried to confiscate the weapons but her father refused to hand them over, claiming his daughter needed them for protection from her ex-husband. May 14th, which marked the end of the semester, a fellow student found his clothes slashed and books destroyed. Laurie was implicated. Later that night, she was found by a resident advisor in the garbage room, asleep in a garbage pile, naked in the fetal position. She was sweating profusely and covered with a garbage bag. The following day, when FBI came to question her about the death threats, she was gone.

Four days later, she appeared at the home of one of her babysitting clients in Glencoe. She was told she wouldn't be needed as a babysitter because the family was moving to New York. Apparently this family wasn't aware of her instability because when she asked if she could take their sons to a fair the next morning, they agreed. She stayed up late that last night preparing for her big day. She made rice crispy snacks and prepared packaged juice drinks, apparently injecting them with arsenic, a syringe was later found in her room with traces of the poison. She awoke early on May 20th, delivering her venomous treats to a couple of frat houses and six homes in Glencoe, Highland Park, and Winnetka. Arriving at her employers house to pick up the boys, she gave them tainted milk. The boys thought it tasted funny and threw it out while Laurie wasn't looking. After picking up the boys, Dann went on to a school and daycare center where her ex-sister-in-law had children enrolled. Setting a fire at Ravinia School with gas in a plastic bag, then to the daycare center with a can of gasoline where she was chased off by a daycare worker. Returning the children to their home, she brought them down to the basement, where their mother was doing laundry. Laurie mumbled something about having to leave and within secs of her departure, the basement stairs were aflame. The family managed to escape by breaking a small window and crawling through to safety.

By the time, the basement fire was started, Laurie was well on her way to Hubbard Woods Elementary School. Armed with two handguns at the school, She first shot a little boy in the stomach, in a school washroom. Next she headed to a second grade classroom where she began shooting wildly through the classroom. Nicholas Corwin, age 8 was killed instantly. She critically wounded five others. Fleeing the school, she crashed her car into a tree on a one way street. Stripping her bloodsoaked shorts, she proceeded to run away wearing only a plastic bag tied around her waist. She reloaded her .32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver and crossed a back yard to enter the unlocked door of Ruth Andrews and her family. She told them that she had just been raped and shot her attacker. She claimed the police were after her for shooting the rapist and it was a misunderstanding. She held the family at bay for over six hours. Using their phone to call her mother who tried to tell her to turn herself in, that everything would be ok. After speaking with her, Phillip Andrews 20 motioned to his family to leave, which Laurie allowed. The brave young man tried to wrestle the gun away from her to be shot in the chest. He staggered out of the house to collaspe on the lawn. Laurie fled to an upstairs bedroom to put the .32 into her mouth killing her instantly.

The aftermath of her rampage left seven people shot, one small boy dead, and several non fatal poisonings. With no suicide note, it's hard to say what finally caused her final snap. She had been seeing pychiatrists for many years and was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and thought to have "erotomania", a disorder that is a pathological attachment to men she wrongly believed were in love with her. Autopsy result revealed lithium (manic depressant) and Anafranil ( anti depressant). Both drugs are sometimes believed to cause violence in patients. The truth is, her parents should have her institutionalized years before.

It was a rainy day for Nicholas Corwin's funeral, about 1500 people showed to pay their respects to a child taken too soon. The community felt violated and scared that this happened to them. A tragic story that could have been avoided and a woman who couldn't take it any longer.

On a side note, the heavy metal band Macabre recorded a song titled "Hey, Laurie Dann" The lyrics are as follows:

Hey Laurie Dann

Hey Laurie Dann where ya going
With those guns in your hand?
I'm going round to shoot young children
I just can't cope with the world were in
Hey Laurie Dann I heard you shot
Those young children down
Yes I did, I shot 'em
You should have seen them hit the ground
I took my guns and I shot 'em
Hey Laurie Dann where ya gonna run to now?
I'm going to a house that's not too far away
I'm gonna shoot one more
Then take my own life away

SKcentral.com

Case of Laurie Dann

(AKA: Laurie Wasserman)

Glencoe, IL

Hubbard Woods School - Winnetka, IL

On May 20, 1988 Laurie Wasserman Dann went on a shooting rampage in an afflient northern suburb of Chicago.

Laurie Wasserman - Dann grew up in Glencoe, an affluent northern suburb of Chicago.  She was the daughter of accountant Norman and Edith Wasserman.  

Laurie was first brought to the attention of Illinois law-enforcement officials in 1985, when they were called in during disputes between her and her husband. In 1986, after the couple had separated, someone stabbed Russell Dann while he was asleep, missing his heart by just one inch. Dann blamed his wife for the attack, and sources close to her family say a shop clerk identified her as the woman who bought an ice pick shortly before the stabbing. But no one saw Laurie Dann enter or leave his apartment; he failed a lie-detector test while Laurie, who often managed to seem like a vulnerable victim, passed. The case was dropped.Laurie first came to the attention of Illinois authorities after she filed for divorce in 1985.

Earlier in 1988 Dann's nuisance calls to an ex-boyfriend, a Tucson doctor, escalated into death threats. "I've been a prosecutor a long time," says Arizona-based Assistant U.S. Attorney Janet Johnson, who listened to a tape of a call. "I thought it was scary." She planned to indict Dann for the threatening calls. But the doctor, fearing retaliation against him and his family, asked Johnson to postpone the indictment, scheduled to take place just two days before the Winnetka shootings.

Meantime, Johnson, who had traced the calls to Madison, Wis., decided to have the FBI there question Dann. But agents couldn't find her in Madison, where, even though she wasn't a student, she maintained a dorm room: she had already left for Illinois. The Chicago Feds were not alerted to pick up the search. Dann, says Johnson, wasn't a top-priority fugitive.

Days prior to Laurie's death, her ex-husband, Russell Dann, received threatening telephone calls.

The night before the FBI looked for Dann in Madison, a student-residence manager had found her in a trash-bin room lying in a fetal position, covered with a plastic bag. By the time the police arrived, Dann had moved to her own quarters. Despite the filth and disorder of the room, she convinced the cops that she needed no medical assistance. They found no gun and concluded they had no grounds to take her into protective custody.

On several occasions, Dann's parents, intervened on their daughter's behalf. When Glencoe police asked him to persuade Dann to give up her .357 magnum, Norman Wasserman refused, saying she needed it as protection against her ex-husband. When several families for whom she baby-sat reported thefts and property damage, Wasserman denied her guilt but made restitution.

Last summer he placated officials at Northwestern University, where Dann was about to be evicted from a campus apartment for turning her room into a health hazard and for leaving raw meat under cushions in public areas. Some authorities believe her parents acted irresponsibly in covering Dann's tracks. "The family was able to do things which blocked the normal processes" of the system, says Frank Kruesi, chief executive officer at the Cook County State's Attorney's office. "They were trying to shield her rather than protect her and do what's best for the community."

1988

1. Woman Opens Fire On Class; Boy, 8, Dead (05/20/1988)

2. Shooting Victims Never Had A Chance (05/20/1988)

3. ABC News Transcripts  (05/20/1988)

4. School Rampage: 1 Dies, 6 Shot, Suspect Kills Self After Siege in Winnetka (05/20/1988)

5. Suspect Had History of Bizarre Acts  (05/21/1988)

6. Woman shoots 6 at school before committing suicide  (05/21/1988)

7. Boy dies as woman goes on rampage; Chicago woman shoots children  (05/21/1988)

8. Timetable For A Day Of Terror  (05/22/1988)

9. Woman sent poisoned snacks before school shooting spree (05/22/1988

10. Police Still Unraveling Trail Left by Woman in Rampage (05/22/1988)

11. Poisoned food Adds Twist to Rampage Case (05/22/1988)

12. Day of Terror in Winnetka Bizarre Acts Colored Past of Gunwoman  (05/22/1988)

13. From Kids To Victims in Minutes (05/22/1988)

14. School Killer Left A Trail of Poison Fraternities, Homes Receive Tainted Food  (05/22/1988)

15. Gun - Curb System Full of Holes  (05/22/1988)

16. School Reopens, Attempts To Ease A Suburb's Fears  (05/22/1988)

17. Teacher Recalls 'Day of Terror'  (05/23/1988)

18. Scared Town Comforts Families - Special Services Soothe The Pain in Winnetka(05/23/1988)

19. NEWSWIRE (05/23/1988)

20. FBI had sought woman before school shooting (05/23/1988)

21. Police arrested close friend of schoolboy killer (05/23/1988)

22. Tragedy Clouds The Return of Hubbard Woods Pupils  (05/24/1988)

23. Slain Pupil Buried Amid The Gloom  (05/24/1988)

24. Children, Grownups - Share Their Grief For Death of 'Nicest Kid' (05/24/1988)

25. Winnetka's Unexplainable Tragedy - And One More Victim  (05/24/1988)

26. THE NATION  (05/26/1988)

27. Ex-Husband of Dann Gets Suspect Mail  (05/26/1988)

28. Shootings Leave a Suburb in Trauma  (05/28/1988)

29. Who Keeps An Eye On The Nannies  (05/29/1988)

30. Pieces From Tucson, Madison Added To Dann Puzzle  (06/01/1988)

31. Winnetka Killer Treated With Psychiatric Drug  (06/02/1988)

32. Dann Took Experimental Drug - Killer Used Medicine to Control Psychiatric Disorder (06/03/1988)

33. State Probing How Dann Obtained Drug (06/03/1988)

34. The Many Faces of Laurie Dann (06/05/1988)

35. Drug Dann Used Gets FDA Approval (06/08/1988)

36. Falling Through the Cracks (06/13/1988)

37. Dann's Father Wanted Her Committed  (06/16/1988)

38. Why Laurie Dann Walked Free - Key INformation Eluded Psychiatrist, Task Force Says  (06/17/1988)

39. Too Few Tried To Help Laurie Dann  (06/29/1988)

40. Dann's Kin Named in 2D Lawsuit  (09/09/1988)

41. Park To Be Renamed For Dann Victim  (09/23/1988)

42. Dann Victims' Kin Sue Her Parents  (11/05/1988)

43. Winnetka Police Chief Recounts Day of Horror (12/05/1988)

By The Associated Press - Los Angeles Times

May 20, 1988

WINNETKA, Ill.  A woman walked into a second-grade classroom and opened fire with a handgun today, killing an 8-year-old boy and critically wounding five other people before barricading herself in a nearby home after shooting a young man, authorities said.

The woman "just walked into the classroom, went past the teacher who was there, indicated the gun was real and began firing at random," said Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm.

The woman fled Hubbard Woods Elementary School and went to a home several blocks away. A 22-year-old man was wounded when he tried to wrestle a gun away from the woman, but he and four other people in the house were able to escape, said Joe Sumner, director of operations for police.

Sumner said a negotiating team was unable to establish contact with the woman. No motive for the shootings was immediately known.

Police recovered a .32-caliber handgun from the school bathroom, and the woman was believed to also have a .22-caliber gun and a third, unidentified weapon, Sumner said.

Police said the woman, believed to be 31, had opened fire at the school without warning at 10:45 a.m. The shooting ended 15 minutes later.

Parents rushed to the school and gathered outside, many of them weeping as they waited for word of their children. School officials said they will keep the remaining children in school until the end of the day.

Sumner said the woman barricaded inside the home used three different names, one of which was Laurie Dann. The FBI said it has an "investigative interest" in a woman of the same name.

Four children were taken by ambulance to Evanston Hospital, and two children and one adult were being treated at Highland Park Hospital, officials said.

"We have two girls and two boys. They're all critical, between the ages of 7 and 9," Evanston Hospital spokeswoman Mary Harris said. "Three are in the operating room, and one is in the emergency room."

Three of the children suffered chest wounds and a fourth suffered a neck wound, Evanston Hospital officials said.

One 8-year-old boy died at Highland Park Hospital, said hospital spokeswoman Sue Masaracchia. One other boy and a 22-year-old man are in critical condition, spokesman Mark Newton said.

ABC News Transcripts

Woman Shoots Children In Classroom - Ted Koppel

ABC News

May 20, 1988 Friday

It happened late this morning at a school in Winnetka, Illinois. One witness said a woman confronted a room full of eight year olds and said, "Kids I'm going to teach you something about guns, line up against the wall". What followed was a nightmare. Chris Bury reports from the scene.

CHRIS BURY  [CLASSROOM] At mid morning a woman carrying at least two handguns entered a second grade classroom at the Hubbard Woods Elementary School. Police say she walked past the teacher, announced that the gun was real and then shot six students at random. [PARENTS] Panicked parents clustered around the school today waiting to see if their children were safe.

WOMAN  It's just a tragedy. There's nothing more to be said.

WOMAN  I just can't believe that anyone would want to hurt children.

CHRIS BURY  There were tears of grief and relief.

WOMAN  It's awful, it should never have happened.

CHRIS BURY  The suspect fled the school to a nearby home, shooting and wounding a 20 year old man who had tried to take her gun away.

WOMAN  She shot my 20 year old kid.

CHRIS BURY  Family members fled the home and the woman suspect holed up inside. Police swat teams and negotiators moved in. [PHOTO] The suspect is identified as 31 year old Laurie Dann, a housekeeper and babysitter. Before the shootings, police say, she set fire to the home where she worked while a mother and herm children where in the basement. They escaped without injury. Parents of the wounded children rushed to the hospital where trauma teams performed emergency surgery.

DR. DAVID WINCHESTER  I still feel quite optimistic about all of them actually. The three who are stable and critical will probably be staged less critical tonight or tomorrow.

CHRIS BURY  The neighborhood school is in one of Chicago's wealthiest suburbs. Winnetka is a place people move to escape the random violence normally associated with the city.

WOMAN  I was just thinking just yesterday about how lucky we are to have such a nice quiet community and such a wonderful school.

CHRIS BURY  While parents and family members waited outside, psychologists inside tried to help students cope with the tragedy.

WOMAN  It's such a small school, the children all know each other.

CHRIS BURY [SU] This afternoon as police searched for a motive, why anyone would shoot innocent children, parents got to take the students home. They hugged their children a little tighter today. Chris Bury, ABC News, Winnetka, Illinois.

TED KOPPEL  At last report, swat teams still are surrounding the house where they believe the woman is hiding. They have thus far at least, made no attempt to storm it.

By Reuter - The Toronto Star

May 21, 1988

WINNETKA, Ill. (Reuter) - A woman who killed one child and critically wounded five others in a shooting spree at a school yesterday took her own life after barricading herself inside a nearby house.

Police in this affluent Chicago suburb said Laurie Dann, 30, who was described as having a history of emotional problems, was found shot to death on the second floor of the house where she had held police at bay for more than six hours.

"They were all very young children," Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said at the school. "She just walked into the room, walked past the teacher, indicated the gun was real and started firing at random.

"You have to ask yourself why. For the life of me I don't know why."

Police say Dann entered the school and shot a boy in the washroom. She then entered a Grade 2 classroom, where she pulled a gun, spoke a few words and sprayed the room with shots, wounding five other children ranging in age from 7 to 9.

One 8-year-old boy in the classroom died of a bullet wound in the chest.

There were about 22 children in the classroom when the shooting started. They dived for cover and those who survived dashed through a door leading to the outside.

"There was blood all over the classroom and desks knocked over" as the children panicked at one-storey, red-brick Hubbard Woods Elementary School, said policeman John Ceglieski.

Chicago Tribune

May 20, 2006

Steve Johnson and Peter Kendall Robert Enstad, David Ibata, Jessica Seigel and Fred Marc Biddle contributed to this report.

Hours after Nicholas Brent Corwin was shot to death at school, his mother wrote three paragraphs about him celebrating the qualities that, when she and her husband contemplated them, would make them "weep with joy."

Linda Corwin wrote of her 8-year-old son's humor and sensitivity, his maturity and imagination, his talent at art and athletics. And she remembered him, on the playing field, as a "very tough competitor."

By Charles Bremner - The Times (London)

May 21 1988

By The Associated Press - The Toronto Star

May 22, 1988

WINNETKA, Ill. (AP) - The woman who went on a shooting rampage at a school apparently also delivered mysterious containers of juice to several homes and arsenic-laced snacks to a pair of university fraternities, police said yesterday.

Three people who ate the snacks at Northwestern University's Alpha Tau Omega became seriously ill and were taken to hospital, Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said. Six other people were treated and released at hospital.

"The situation with Laurie has not ended," Timm said.

The chief said Laurie Dann, 30, dropped off juice containers at the doors of six homes where she once worked as a babysitter.

At one of the homes, the juice carried a note that read, "Love your little sisters. Enjoy."

Police found books about poison in Dann's Madison apartment.

Those who knew Dann say her rampage was not a surprise.

"I had a feeling that this person was about to explode," said Fred Foreman, the county state's attorney. His office was trying to track down Dann for making threatening phone calls to an old boyfriend.

Her ex-husband woke up one night in 1986 to find himself bleeding from a stab wound made with an ice pick. He suspected his wife, but police could find no link between her and the stabbing.

The couple were separated at the time.

By The Associated Press - The New York Times

May 22, 1988

WINNETKA, Ill., May 21 The Federal Bureau of Investigation knew about Laurie Wasserman Dann. So did prosecutors in three states. So did her neighbors and her former husband and in-laws.

Prosecutors were trying to track her down and charge her with making harassing telephone calls and threats as she became increasingly disturbed. But they lost a race with time. On Friday, the 30-year-old woman set fire to the house where she worked as a baby sitter, went to an elementary school and shot six children, killing one, then wounded a 20-year-old man in a nearby house and barricaded herself there.

The nine-hour ordeal ended Friday night when police discovered that Ms. Dann had fatally shot herself.

The authorities said today they believe that before Friday's attack, Ms. Dann delivered marshmallow and rice cereal snacks tainted with arsenic to two fraternity houses at Northwestern University in Evanston. Several students who ate the snacks at the Alpha Tau Omega and Psi Upsilon fraternities became ill.

The police said Ms. Dann also may have tried to poison members of several families for whom she once had worked.

''The situation with Laurie has not ended,'' said Herbert Timm, police chief of Winnetka, referring to the reconstruction of events on the day of the shootings.

Chief Timm said that before the shooting, Ms. Dann dropped off fruit drinks at the doors of six houses where she once worked as a baby sitter in the Chicago suburbs of Glencoe, Highland Park and unincorporated Winnetka. One girl who drank the fruit drink became ill, but she was never taken to a hospital.

Laboratory tests showed that the juice contained arsenic, said Sgt. Gene Kalvaitis of the Winnetka police. He said he did not know how much arsenic was in the juice.

At Ms. Dann's apartment in Madison, Wis., authorities said they found a list of people who had received the drink deliveries, They also recovered two vials of powdered substances, one black and one white.

Chief Timm said the police did not know why Ms. Dann had delivered the snacks to the two fraternities. Seven people who ate the snacks were later treated at local hospitals and released.

Sergeant Kalvaitis said an analysis of the snacks by a police laboratory showed that they ''contained a very heavy concentration of arsenic.''

The police believe that Ms. Dann was distraught Friday that the family that employed her as a baby sitter had an nounced plans to move out of state.

Four of the children wounded at Hubbard Woods Elementary School in this affluent northern suburb remained in critical condition today.

As details emerged about the bizarre final hours of Ms. Dann's life, hundreds of parents and children touched by the tragedy gathered at the school today to discuss the shootings and pray for the victims and Ms. Dann. Social workers talked privately with some of them.

''The F.B.I. had looked for her in Madison, but she had disappeared. We knew we were going to try to follow up leads, but she was lost so there wasn't much we could do.''

Ms. Dann, the daughter of a accountant, was reared in Glencoe, a nearby suburb. She came to the attention of Illinois authorities after she filed for divorce in 1986 from Russell Dann, an insurance agent.

By The Associated Press - Los Angeles Times

May 22, 1988

WINNETKA, Ill.  A woman who went on a deadly shooting rampage at a school first delivered arsenic-tainted juice to at least six homes and poisoned snacks to a pair of Northwestern University fraternities, police said Saturday.

Three people who ate the snacks at Alpha Tau Omega became seriously ill and were taken to Evanston Hospital, Police Chief Herbert Timm said. University and hospital officials said a total of six students were treated and released.

Timm said Laurie Dann, 30, dropped off the drinks laced with arsenic at the doors of six homes in Glencoe, Highland Park and unincorporated Winnetka where she once worked as a baby-sitter.

One Glencoe girl felt ill after sipping the juice but was not taken to a hospital, Timm said. A Highland Park child was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

Laboratory tests showed the juice contained arsenic, Winnetka police Sgt. Gene Kalvaitis said. But he said he did not know how much arsenic was in the juice.

Timm said police found a syringe at a suburban Chicago apartment where Dann stayed and investigators believed she used that to inject arsenic into the snacks.

Meanwhile, hundreds of parents and children touched by the tragedy gathered at the school Saturday to discuss the shootings and offer prayers for the victims and for Dann. Social workers were on hand to talk privately with them.

Dr. Ira Sloan, chairman of the psychiatry department at Evanston Hospital, said reactions ranged widely. "There were children who were crying," Sloan said. "There were children helping each other, hugging each other and handing Kleenex to each other. There were children who were angry."

Police believe that Dann became distraught when a family that hired her to baby-sit said they were leaving Illinois. Before the shootings, she tried to set fire Friday to the family's home and another school, police said.

By Wes Smith and John O'Brien - Chicago Tribune

May 22, 1988

"What ifs" besieged the mind of a former boyfriend of Laurie Dann when he learned of her rampage against schoolchildren and her suicide Friday in Winnetka.

And those whose lives intersected with Dann along the way, in Tucson, in Madison, Wis., and elsewhere, were left to ponder what might have happened had she snapped and struck at them instead.

Chicago Tribune

May 22, 1988

By Ray Gibson and Linnet Myers Wes Smith, Terry Wilson, Maria Hunt, Robert Enstad, Ray Gibson, Peter Kendall and Steve Johnson contributed to this report

Before she began her bloody shooting spree at a Winnetka grammar school, Laurie Dann tried to deliver death up and down the North Shore in the form of tainted food and beverage, police said Saturday.

Crime labs were testing suspicious food packages that Dann left at two Northwestern University fraternities, a graduate school building and several North Shore homes, police said.

By Jean Davidson - Chicago Tribune

May 22, 1988

Laurie Dann purchased the three handguns used in Friday's bloody rampage at a Glenview gun shop where she was remembered as "just a pleasant, friendly person."

"There was absolutely nothing unusual about her," said John Morgan, owner of Marksman Police and Shooter Supply, 920 Waukegan Rd., in the northern suburb. A clerk at the store remembered Dann because she was flirtatious, according to Morgan.

By Stevenson Swanson and Robert Enstad Steve Johnson, Maria Hunt, Ray Gibson, Dennis Odom, David Ibata and Joel Kaplan contributed to this report

Chicago Tribune

May 22, 2006

It seemed appropriate that in the genteel community of Winnetka-more of a quiet, isolated village than a suburb of a major American city-school officials were so concerned about the mental well-being of students and parents that they held a session to counsel and comfort them the day after Laurie Dann had shot six children at the school, killing one and seriously injuring the others.

Laurie Dann arrived at the school about 10:30 a.m., after leaving the house of Padraig and Marian Rushe, where she had set a fire that briefly trapped Mrs. Rushe and two of the couple's children in the basement.

By Jessica Seigel - Chicago Tribune

May 23, 1988

When a stone-faced woman walked into the 2d-grade classroom about 10:30 a.m. Friday at Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka, teacher Amy Moses tried to share with her the excitement of 24 children eager to complete a test on bicycle safety.

"I really wanted her to know why the children were so happy," Moses recounted Sunday at a friend's home in Evanston. "It was such a special day- bike-test day. We were going to have just a fun, fun day, and it was just a day of terror."

By Maria Hunt and Robert Enstad Steve Johnson, Maria Hunt, Ray Gibson, Dennis Odom, David Ibata and Joel Kaplan contributed to this report

Chicago Tribune

May 23, 1988

"My kids are preoccupied with this, and the fact that it was a baby- sitter," said one parent, Karen Ward, whose children are 5 and 8. Her children do not attend the Hubbard Woods Elementary School, where Laurie Dann, 30, barged into the school Friday and shot 6 children before eventually killing herself. But Ward's children, who attend another Winnetka school, "very much want to talk about it and the person who did it and why," she said.

The shots killed Nicholas Corwin, 8, of 700 Locust St., Winnetka, and wounded five others, all from Winnetka. Reported in serious condition late Saturday at Evanston Hospital were Robert Trossman, 6; Kathryn Miller, 7; and Mark Tebourek, 8. Lindsay Fisher, 8, was reported in critical condition at Evanston. The condition of Peter Munro, 8, was upgraded Sunday from serious to fair by officials at Highland Park Hospital.

Newswire

Los Angeles Times

A sprinter on the Northwestern University track team returned to action in the Big Ten track and field meet at Ann Arbor, Mich., two days after eating a poisoned cookie left by the woman involved in a shooting spree at a Winnetka, Ill., elementary school.

The Christian Science Monitor

May 23, 1988

Winnetka, Ill.  A woman who killed a child and wounded five others in a fusillade of gunfire in a school was the target of a search by FBI agents at the time, officials said.

The woman, Laurie Dann, who was wanted for allegedly making telephoned death threats against her ex-husband and a former boyfriend, killed herself in the incident Friday.

By Marci Persky-Hooper - United Press International

May 26, 1988

WINNETKA, Ill.  Police seeking ''to prevent another tragedy'' arrested a close friend of child-killer Laurie Dann and recovered a .357 magnum pistol from her apartment, Police Chief Herbert Timm said Thursday.

Timm said Sheri Lynn Taylor, 34, of Highwood, was arrested Wednesday night and charged with making threatening telephone calls to her ex-husband. After questioning, she was committed for psychiatric evaluation at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke Medical Center in Chicago, Timm said. ''We felt immediate action was absolutely necessary because of information that we had developed as to her instability and her connection with Laurie Dann,'' Timm told a news conference.

He said investigators believe she may have played at least a passive role in Dann's violent spree.

Dann, 30, who worked as babysitter in her neighborhood, burst Friday into the Hubbard Woods Elementary School in the affluent North Shore Chicago suburb of Winnetka and opened fire. She killed an 8-year-old boy and wounded five other children before fleeing, taking refuge in a nearby home where she shot and wounded a 20-year-old man and later killed herself.

Police have since uncovered dozens of packages of poisoned or tampered-with juice and food they said was delivered or mailed by Dann prior to her shooting spree.

''As many of you realized, since the events of last Friday, we have attempted to contact friends and associates of Laurie Dann,'' said Timm, who is heading a task force investigating the case.

''We had identified Sheri Taylor as a close friend. We then received information from her ex-husband that led us to believe that she may be a threat to herself, her family and this community,'' he told reporters at police headquarters.

''We are trying to verify if she had been with Lauri Dann last Thursday or Friday,'' Timm said.

Timm said Taylor's ex-husband, Scott Taylor of Glencoe, told police Wednesday he began receiving threatening telephone calls May 3 and that the threats persisted after Dann's suicide.

''Once Mr. Taylor approached our investigators, it became extremely obvious this was a dangerous situation,'' Timm said. ''We wanted to prevent another tragedy.''

Timm said the calls ''were threatening the life of Mr. Taylor and apparently were threatening the lives of their children, who are in the custody of Mr. Taylor and his new wife.''

Dann's former husband, Russell Dann, also had received threatening telephone calls from ex-spouse before her death.

Police arrested Taylor Wednesday night at the Convenient Food Store in Highwood, where she worked. She was taken into custody on a bond forfeiture warrant from Evanston for failure to appear in court on a traffic violation and was later charged with making threatening phone calls.

Officers later accompanied her to her apartment, where they confiscated a .357 magnum revolver and ''certain documents ... (that) are being examined by the task force,'' Dann said.

He said, however, that she had a valid permit to own the gun. After questioning about her relationship with Dann, Taylor was taken to Rush Presbyterian St. Luke Medical Center, where she was involuntarily committed.

''It is important to understand ... to determine the entire extent of Miss Taylor's involvement with Laurie Dann and the incident of May 20,'' Timm said.

''There is so much information that we still have to develop with Miss Taylor. There are still pieces of this puzzle that remain and need to be answered.''

He said investigators suspect Sheri Taylor may have had some indirect role in Dann's violent activities -- which also included making phone threats, manufacturing incendiary devices and sending a barrage of poisoned packets of food and fruit drink across the country.

But Timm could not specify how investigators believe Sheri Taylor could have been involved, saying only, ''There are numerous possibilities.''

Dann and Taylor met at a wedding while both were married, Timm said. The two couples became close, and began going through divorces at about the same time.

By Maria Hunt and David Ibata - Chicago Tribune

May 24, 1988

School resumed at Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka Monday, with most of the children being walked to the front door by one or both parents.

Nicholas Corwin, 8, and a 2d grader at Hubbard Woods, was the boy who was shot to death Friday by a deranged woman who also shot four other children in Nicholas' classroom, a 6-year-old boy in the school washroom, and a 20- year-old college student elsewhere in Winnetka.

By Eric Zorn - Chicago Tribune

May 24, 2006

Just before Nicholas Corwin's small, brown coffin was lowered into the ground Monday, several of his young friends leaned forward and reached out for a parting touch.

More than six hours earlier, a chilly, unhappy dawn had broken in Winnetka, a community still reeling from the shock of Friday's violence that hospitalized six people and left Nicholas Corwin, 8, dead of gunshot wounds.

By Robert Enstad and Jessica Seigel - Chicago Tribune

May 24, 2006

Chicago Tribune

May 24, 2006

As the achingly difficult process of recovery from the inexplicable tragedy in Winnetka's Hubbard Woods school begins and as police in half a dozen North Shore suburbs continue to check for poisoned food and drink left by Laurie Dann, a tangle of unanswerable questions remains.

How could a mentally unstable person like Dann have been allowed to purchase guns? How did she have access to the poison she used to lace fruit juice, milk and cereal snacks? Why didn't her occasional bizarre actions alert someone-her parents, police in the North Shore suburbs and in Madison, any of the families for whom she baby-sat, her former husband-that she was mentally ill and in urgent need of help?

Los Angeles Times

May 26, 1988

By Steve Johnson and George Papajohn Ray Gibson and Henry Wood contributed to this report

Chicago Tribune

May 26, 1988

Authorities are investigating whether Laurie Wasserman Dann, the woman who opened fire in a 2d-grade classroom last week in Winnetka, sent her former husband an envelope containing fruit juice that was discovered Wednesday afternoon at a Highland Park post office.

After X-rays indicated the package was not a bomb, said Winnetka Police Sgt. Gene Kalvaitis, the envelope containing the foil package of fruit juice was turned over to the Northern Illinois Crime Laboratory for analysis. Kalvaitis said he did not know when the package was postmarked.

By Isabel Wilkerson - The New York Times

May 28, 1988 

WINNETKA, Ill., May 27  Until a week ago, fear was a foreign emotion in this wealthy suburb north of Chicago. Children played freely, school doors were always open and violence and murder were what happened to someone else.

All that changed last week when a young, apparently deranged woman opened fire in a second-grade public school classroom, killing an 8-year-old pupil and wounding five others. The woman, Laurie Dann, 30, later shot and wounded a 20-year-old man before killing herself.

Now the town that had not had a murder since 1957 is trying to heal its psychic wounds and make sense of what seemed the unthinkable. At the same time, residents are doing all they can to make sure it does not happen again.

The recovery has been made more difficult by reports that, just before the shootings, Mrs. Dann mailed as many as 24 packages of tainted food and juice to friends and acquaintances in Wisconsin and California and several suburbs north of Chicago. No one has been hurt in the incidents, which are being investigated by the Federal authorities.

Who Keeps An Eye On The Nannies

May 29, 1988

In the emotionally fraught, compromise-ridden world of American child care, a real-life Mary Poppins is a rare thing. Luckily, so is a Laurie Dann, the baby-sitter whose rampage earlier this month in Winnetka, Ill., left one child dead and six people injured. Dann's notoriety raises uncomfortable questions about the nature of child care throughout the nation.

The parental anxiety and guilt that attend child care in general may be even more acute in the case of in-home care. In essence, parents are inviting strangers into their homes and leaving them alone with their children. Still, in-home care constitutes only about a third of child-care arrangements nationwide and includes many families in which relatives are the care-givers. And despite all the problems, there is a happy ending for most families.

By Stevenson Swanson - Chicago Tribune

June 1, 1988

Winnetka investigators who traveled last week to Tucson and Madison, Wis., on Tuesday compared notes and examined the psychiatric records of Laurie Dann's Madison therapist, who released the files late Friday.

Before returning this weekend, the task force in Madison also had a 4 1/ 2-hour interview with the therapist, Dr. John Greist, who was treating Dann in the period leading up to her May 20 shooting rampage in which she killed a boy, wounded six people and killed herself.

By Ray Gibson - Chicago Tribune

June 2, 1988

Laurie Dann, the woman who shot and killed a Winnetka 2d grader and wounded six people on May 20, was being treated with an experimental drug used to control a psychiatric disorder, Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein said Wednesday.

Stein said that traces of a drug called clomipramine, which is known by the trade name Anafrail, were the only drug that turned up in blood tests performed in conjunction with Dann's autopsy. Dann killed herself after the shootings.

By Ray Gibson - Chicago Tribune

June 3, 1988

Laurie Dann, the woman who shot and killed a Winnetka 2d grader and wounded six people on May 20, was being treated with an experimental drug used to control a psychiatric disorder, according to Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein.

Winnetka Police Lt. Joe Sumner said Thursday that Dann, 30, obtained the drug in March from a pharmacy in Canada using a prescription reportedly written by a Chicago psychiatrist. The drug was found last week when police searched Dann's room in Madison, Wis.

By Ray Gibson and Stevenson Swanson - Chicago Tribune

June 3, 1988

State officials said Thursday that they were investigating how Laurie Dann, the Glencoe woman who shot and killed a Winnetka 2d-grader and wounded six people May 20, obtained an experimental drug used to treat a psychiatric disorder.

Additional tests, disclosed Thursday, also revealed that Dann had levels of another drug, lithium carbonate. A Madison psychiatrist, who had been treating Dann until March, had prescribed this for Dann.

George Papajohn and Joel Kaplan Ray Gibson, William Recktenwald, John O'Brien, Steve Johnson, Barbara Mahany and Stevenson Swanson contributed to this report

Chicago Tribune

June 5, 1988

Chicago Tribune

June 8, 1988

By Eloise Salholz with Patricia King in Chicago - Newsweek

June 13, 1988

Why the system didn't stop the Winnetka killer

To the Illinois police, there were blood-chilling similarities between Sheri Lynn Taylor and Laurie Dann, the babysitter who killed one eight-year-old and wounded five other children at Winnetka's Hubbard Woods Elementary School last month. Like Dann, the 34-year-old Taylor made threatening calls to her former husband. Like Dann, she owned a .357 magnum. And the two women were friends. After Dann killed herself following her murderous rampage, Taylor stepped up her menacing phone calls. "She was a blueprint of Laurie Dann," says Winnetka police chief Herbert Timm. "She was a time bomb that looked like it was ready to go off." Instead, it was defused. After being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, Taylor agreed to extend her stay. But their success in the Taylor case only intensified the authorities' regrets about the one that got away. Though known to the police in three states, says Timm, Dann "just fell through the cracks."

Laurie Dann's numerous run-ins with the law make it tempting, in hindsight, to believe that someone should have known just how disturbed she was, and how dangerous. But despite a long history of antisocial behavior, her criminal record was deceptively short: she had been charged only with making hang-up phone calls to her former in-laws, a misdemeanor that was never prosecuted, and with shoplifting earlier this year. Profoundly shaken by the shootings, acquaintances, mental-health professionals and police in Chicago's suburbs and beyond are asking themselves whether they could have done anything to stop Laurie Dann, a woman who acted out her private demons very much in public. Her case underscores some troubling issues:

* Staying One Step Behind: Illinois law-enforcement officials had known about Dann since 1985, when they were called in during disputes between her and her husband. In 1986, after the couple had separated, someone stabbed Russell Dann while he was asleep, missing his heart by just one inch. Dann blamed his wife for the attack, and sources close to her family say a shop clerk identified her as the woman who bought an ice pick shortly before the stabbing. But no one saw Laurie Dann enter or leave his apartment; he failed a lie-detector test while Laurie, who often managed to seem like a vulnerable victim, passed. The case was dropped.

Earlier this year Dann's nuisance calls to an ex-boyfriend, a Tucson doctor, escalated into death threats. "I've been a prosecutor a long time," says Arizona-based Assistant U.S. Attorney Janet Johnson, who listened to a tape of a call. "I thought it was scary." She planned to indict Dann for the threatening calls. But the doctor, fearing retaliation against him and his family, asked Johnson to postpone the indictment, scheduled to take place just two days before the Winnetka shootings. Meantime, Johnson, who had traced the calls to Madison, Wis., decided to have the FBI there question Dann. But agents couldn't find her in Madison, where, even though she wasn't a student, she maintained a dorm room: she had already left for Illinois. The Chicago Feds were not alerted to pick up the search. Dann, says Johnson, wasn't a top-priority fugitive.

The night before the FBI looked for Dann in Madison, a student-residence manager had found her in a trash-bin room lying in a fetal position, covered with a plastic bag. By the time the police arrived, Dann had moved to her own quarters. Despite the filth and disorder of the room, she convinced the cops that she needed no medical assistance. They found no gun and concluded they had no grounds to take her into protective custody.

By George Papajohn - Chicago Tribune

June 16, 2006

Laurie Dann's psychiatrist in Wisconsin was unaware of important information, which could have been provided by her parents, that might have helped commit her involuntarily, Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said Wednesday.

Dr. John Greist, the psychiatrist in Madison, Wis., who treated Dann, was stunned when he learned after the shooting that she had bought three guns and that she had been in trouble with police-information that he might have used to build a case that she was dangerous and should be committed, according to Timm.

By George Papajohn - Chicago Tribune

June 17, 1988

Laurie Dann's psychiatrist in Wisconsin was stunned to learn after Dann's May 20 shooting spree that she owned three guns and that she had been in trouble with police-information he might have used to build a case that she was dangerous and should be committed, Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm said Wednesday.

Her father, Norman Wasserman, of Glencoe, had appealed to his daughter to voluntarily commit herself to a hospital, Timm said. Timm made his comments in an interview after releasing a report on Dann based on the work of a police task force.

By Kristin Peter - Chicago Tribune

June 29, 1988

It has been several weeks since the incident involving Laurie Dann in Winnetka and I am still astounded by the reactions of the community.

I am a student at the University of Wisconsin who lived in the building where Laurie Dann resided. I saw her nearly every day, sometimes several times a day. I ate lunch and dinner at the same time she did and even had a few conversations with her. When I spoke with her she seemed shy and withdrawn and I kind of felt sorry for her.

By Rudolph Unger - Chicago Tribune

September 9, 2006

The father of an 8-year-old boy who was shot to death in his Winnetka classroom by Laurie Dann last May filed suit Thursday against Dann's parents, alleging they ignored a recommendation that their daughter be committed to a mental institution.

The negligence suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, seeks an unspecified amount of damages "in excess of $15,000," from Dann's parents, Norman and Edith Wasserman, of Glencoe.

By John Lucadamo - Chicago Tribune

September 23, 1988

Winnetka Park District board members Thursday night voted 5-2 to name a park in the North Shore village after Nicholas Corwin, the 8-year-old boy who was shot to death by Laurie Dann after she stormed into a Winnetka elementary school last May 20.

Edgewood Park, which is near the Corwin family home and is also where Nicholas used to play soccer, will be renamed Nick Corwin Park.

By Joseph Sjostrom - Chicago Tribune

December 4, 1988

When Laurie Dann went on her shooting spree in a Winnetka elementary school last May, Herbert Timm, police chief of the affluent North Shore suburb, was in church just a block and a half away.

Timm and other village officials were attending the funeral of a retired firefighter when they heard police sirens. Timm ducked out to a drugstore and called the police station to ask what was happening.

By Eugene McCarthy - The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario)

October 13, 1990

MURDER OF INNOCENCE, by Joel Kaplan, George Papajohn and Eric Zorn (Random  House, 335 pages, $26).

Undoubtedly, someone is working - or has completed - a book on the murders of 14 women at a Montreal polytechnical school last winter. The book will undoubtedly focus partly on the mental instablity of the man who caused their deaths. This book, by three Chicago Tribune journalists, Joel Kaplan, George Papajohn and Eric Zorn, examines another tragedy: the slaying of one boy and the wounding of five other students at a Chicago-area elementary school on May 20, 1988.

The authors look at the unhappy and muddled life of Laurie Wasserman Dann, the 30-year-old woman who did the shooting. She also attempted to poison at least 50 people the day of the shooting by leaving arsenic-spiked fruit juice at their residences.

She ended her rampage of hate by shooting herself when cornered in a private home.

In this way, the reporters have put together a fascinating story of a young woman's descent into madness over a prolonged period of time. The thought that will occur to every reader at the conclusion of the book is: why didn't someone do something?

The writers make it fairly clear that if anyone, other than Laurie Dann herself, was to blame for the tragedy, it has to be her parents. They, and particularly her father, are portrayed as having little or no insight into their daughter's problems particularly in her early and adolescent years.

That laissez-faire attitude has caused several lawsuits against them. One lawyer notes that the actions will have a significant bearing on the responsiblity of parents for the actions of adult children.

People who run amok like Dann don't often come from a totally unscathed background. The authors point to numerous instances over the years where authorities were warned about her erratic and harassing behavior. And, sadly, she was treated for mental disorders, but when there was an attempt to find out about them, patient confidentiality intervened.

While it's important to protect that, the shootings might have been avoided had officials been able to get more information about Dann from psychiatrists.

And, like other books about similar tragedies, the age-old controversy over gun laws in the U.S. is raised once again in this book.

Faced with ample evidence that a very sick individual was able to buy three handguns, legislation was amended in Illinois prohibiting "violent, suicidal, threatening or assaultive" individuals from having the necessary papers to own weapons.

The case of Laurie Dann was mimicked by two other individuals, once the following September in a South Carolina elementary school and the following January in a Stockton, Calif., schoolyard by gun-toting crazies.

Book Review

Publishers Weekly - 1990

By Ginny Holbert - Chicago Sun-Times

November 30, 1993

Murder of Innocence - WBBM-Channel 2, 8 to 10 p.m. Tuesday

When it comes to made-for-TV movies, taste is a function of time and distance. The closer we are to a real tragedy -- whether physically, emotionally or in terms of time passed -- the more tasteless it seems when one of the networks turns it into a movie. The NBC movie about Waco, Texas, for example, filmed as the hostage situation was still unfolding, seemed like a particularly tacky example of ratings-driven ambulance-chasing.

In that sense, "Murder of Innocence," a CBS movie based on Laurie Dann's 1989 shooting spree in a North Shore schoolroom, comes a little too close for comfort. It's possible, of course, that those who were directly affected by the tragedy will find closure or catharsis in the movie. I don't know. And it may be that gun control advocates will see in the story a clear argument for stricter gun laws, although NRA types may see an entirely different lesson.

It's also possible that the film will reopen old wounds in the name of morbid entertainment.

The movie, airing at 8 p.m. Tuesday on Channel 2, is based on the book of the same name by Joel Kaplan, George Papajohn and Eric Zorn. Although the movie gets most of the facts straight, names have been changed to protect both the guilty and the innocent.

Valerie Bertinelli, queen of the TV B-movie, turns in a disturbing, convincing portrait of a woman disintegrating into madness. In the beginning, Dann (here renamed Laurie Wade) charms her new husband (Stephen Caffrey) with good looks and playful unpredictability. Within days of their marriage, she begins sending little signals of distress -- such as writing PAIN on the wall in lipstick, tearing up the bedroom and hiding in the closet with a butcher knife.

Throughout, the dialogue is so banal you have to figure it's real. According to "Murder of Innocence," none of these people ever talked much to each other. But if the script is docudrama dull, the direction is surprisingly artsy for this kind of film. Director Tom McLoughlin uses a variety of techniques, including flashbacks, very tight close-ups and MTV-style cuts to illustrate Laurie's frightening decline.

Ultimately, though, we never gain any insight into why Laurie Dann was the way she was. The film suggests that Laurie, as an adorable but alienated child, stood in the schoolyard pretending to shoot her little playmates. Other than that, there is no explanation for her behavior, nor even a convincing diagnosis for her illness.

It may very well be that there simply is no explanation. No one ever understood what was going on in her mind or what her parents were thinking. It was incomprehensible when it happened, and it's no more understandable in the made-for-TV version.

By Rosalind Rossi

Many Chicago area schools--and parents--never were the same after 1988.

On May 20, a mentally unstable Glencoe baby-sitter named Laurie Dann opened fire on a second-grade classroom in Winnetka's Hubbard Woods School. One child was killed, and five were injured. Blood puddled the floor of Classroom 7, but Dann killed herself before explaining why.

As anxious parents milled outside, the principal emerged, covered in blood. He pointed in Agnew's direction. "I need to see you," he said. Agnew froze.

"Me?" a terror-stricken Agnew said. It turned out, however, that he was pointing to another mom, whose daughter was one of those shot. "Both our knees, I know, were shaking," Agnew said.

The nation shook as well; murder had pierced the sanctity of the classroom. And it happened in the well-manicured, stately North Shore suburb of Winnetka.

The incident was the first of a string of fatal school shootings that stunned the country through the end of the 1990s. But in its immediate aftermath, Agnew recalled, "All of a sudden, doors were locked" at Chicago area schools. Visitors were screened. Three suburbs passed handgun bans that year. The shooting prompted gun debates nationwide.

Mayor Daley (left) seated with Gov. James R. Thompson (right) as he signed the Chicago school reform law.Meanwhile, drastic change was brewing for the Chicago public school system--the nation's third-largest.

Parental anger had boiled over the year before when schools were idled by a 19-day teachers strike--the ninth since 1970--and U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett labeled Chicago schools the "worst in the nation." Nearly half of the students who entered Chicago high schools were not graduating.

That spring, as city parents and businessmen joined forces to demand school reform, nine outraged Chicago aldermen helped "arrest" a painting of the late Mayor Harold Washington donned in women's undergarments. That summer, the city sweltered through 100-degree heat. By summer's end, on the North Side, the Chicago Cubs got lights--only to be rained out on their inaugural night.

By Jennifer Halperin - Northern Illinois University

December 1993 / Illinois Issues / 11

In the five years since Laurie Dann shot him in the chest, Philip Andrew has learned a lot about life, his government, and the pervasive reach of violence in society

Like most 26-year-olds, Philip J. Andrew still has much to learn about the world. But he has received an education in real life during the last five years that most people never get — or want.

The education of Phil Andrew began early on May 20, 1988, the first day of a summer break that looked especially promising for him. A 20-year-old student, he had arrived home the previous evening in the tony Chicago suburb of Winnetka from his junior year at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Andrew had been training all year with the college swim team and felt, he recalls, "in the best shape of my life" — more than ready for the competitive swim meets scheduled for the summer. Even more exciting for him were the two internships he had lined up: one in U.S. Rep. John Porter's office, the other working for the Lake County state's attorney. By all appearances, he was laying the groundwork for a future involved in public service.

Andrew was sitting in the kitchen of his family's comfortable home talking to his mother, Ruth Ann, when an unwelcome visitor arrived at the back door. Her name was Laurie Dann, and she would turn his plans for the summer upside down and alter the course of his life. Dann, a name many Illinoisans never will forget, had just left Hubbard Woods Elementary School, where she had shot several children. Eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin, who was shot in a second-grade classroom, died; five others survived their wounds. Police already were searching the neighborhood for Dann when she entered the Andrews' large home, clad in a T-shirt, shower curtain and plastic garbage bag, and carrying two handguns.

At first, Andrew and his mother were sympathetic toward Dann, who told them she had been sexually assaulted and was afraid she would be in trouble with police because she shot her attacker. But it soon became apparent Dann's story made little sense. Dann allowed Ruth Ann to leave the house to wait outside for her two daughters' return from high school. Andrew's father, Raymond, also was allowed to leave when his son promised Dann he would stay.

By Dave Newbart - Chicago Sun Times

September 25, 2006

The ordinary looking profile on MySpace.com says the 48-year-old woman from Glencoe enjoys "baby-sitting and would someday like to be a schoolteacher."

But the profile notes, "I am a bit crazy and suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.''

The profile is for Laurie Wasserman Dann, who in 1988 walked into a public school classroom in north suburban Winnetka and shot six children, wounding five and killing one. She later killed herself. The profile includes a black-and-white photo.

The profile was one of 111 million on the social networking site used by teenagers and others worldwide to communicate with friends and meet new people. But it was also one of several purporting to be posted by dead killers, including John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer.

This phony profile of Laurie Dann, whose rampage ended in her suicide, was removed after MySpace officials were notified of it. Similar profiles of dead serial killers John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer remained as of Sunday night, however.

Herb Timm, who was Winnetka's police chief at the time of the gruesome crime, said the profile was "terribly offensive. That sickens me.''

Timm said whoever created the profile is "one insensitive sick person.''

After being informed of the Dann profile Saturday by the Chicago Sun-Times, MySpace officials removed it.

It's 'about having fun'

Pawlak said he didn't believe the music was offensive.