The Brazilian whose shooting spree left 12 school children dead was a loner who spent his days surfing the Web, and had been a victim of schoolyard bullying and taunts, those who knew him said.
The country was struggling to come to grips with how 23-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a former student at the school where he committed Thursday’s atrocity, could morph from a quiet, solitary person with no criminal record into a suicidal monster.
Menezes de Oliveira’s classmates and former teachers said he was routinely bullied at school, rejected and taunted by girls in class, and forced to endure “constant humiliation” including being thrown into a school garbage can, according to Brazilian media.
Fellow students gave him the nasty nickname “Swing,” because he walked with a limp, said former classmate Bruno Linhares, who lamented to O Globo newspaper that “the class fool turned into a criminal.”
“They called him all kinds of names,” said Linhares, 23, who studied with Menezes at Rio’s Tasso da Silveira school where the bloodbath took place.
“I honestly do not know why he did not do that [massacre] with our own group,” Linhares told local media.
Experts took to Brazil’s airwaves, seeking to explain just how he could have turned to evil, with some saying Menezes could have been reacting to the abuse at school.
“Often the victim of bullying tends to isolate themselves, but can also become violent,” University of Rio psychologist Maria Luiza Bustamente said.
A former Menezes teacher, Celia Maria de Carvalho, who was in the building on the day of the shooting and escaped with her life, described Wellington as a quiet, shy boy who was constantly picked on by classmates.
“Unfortunately, this [massacre] is the bitter memory that will stay with me after so many years of the struggle for education,” the 51-year-old teacher told O Dia daily.
A bizarre letter found on Menezes’ dead body showed the killer’s clearly disturbed mindset and confirmed he had embarked on a premeditated suicide mission.
“They must know that the impure cannot touch me without gloves, only the chaste or those who lost their chastity after marriage and were not involved in adultery will be able to touch me without gloves,” it said.
“Nothing that is impure can touch my blood,” the letter -continued, leaving instructions for his body to be undressed, cleaned and then wrapped in a white shroud he took with him to the school.
The note, which he signed, also expressed his desire to be buried next to his adopted mother, and asked “forgiveness from God for what I have done.”
Menezes de Oliveira’s family said their adopted son had left home eight months earlier, when his mother died and became even more withdrawn.
Adopted as a baby, he had five brothers and sisters who said he never had friends.
Recently he was looking disheveled, dressing in black and looking at weapons sites on the Web, his elder sister Roselaine said.
“We found it odd. He had a long beard [and] said strange things. He spent his time on the Internet, had no friends, was very withdrawn,” Roselaine, who last saw her brother seven months ago, told TV Band News.
According to one neighbors, Menezes “walked with his head down without speaking to anyone.”
Menezes worked as a messenger, but was sacked in August.
“He was always alone but never aggressive,” said one employee, adding that “everyone [at the company where Menezes used to work] was horrified” by the attack.
Police who searched the home where he most recently lived said they found his computer partially burned, suggesting he wanted to leave no cybertraces.
Arsenio Butil Jr fell to his knees and began to pray when last week’s deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake began shaking his home on the coast of the southern Philippines. When he opened his eyes, he saw a once-familiar shoreline changing in real time, with swathes of previously submerged coral suddenly pushing above the waterline. The June 8 quake, driven by a shifting of the nearby Cotabato Trench, toppled buildings, triggered landslides and killed at least 76 people on the southern island of Mindanao. The tectonic forces at work also thrust chunks of the island’s coastline upward in a phenomenon known as “coastal uplift,”
NATO ALLIES: The Italian PM accused Trump of ‘constant, unprovoked ... senseless’ attacks and said ‘my popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours’ Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday fired back at US President Donald Trump, saying his “constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless” after he escalated a diplomatic row by accusing her of repeatedly seeking a photograph with him. The clash has opened an unusually personal rift between Trump and one of Europe’s most prominent right-wing leaders, who had sought to cast herself as a bridge between Washington and the continent during Trump’s return to power. Trump had initially told Italian broadcaster La7 that Meloni “begged” him for a picture at last week’s G7 summit in France, saying he agreed only because
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian forces were preparing an impending massive attack on Ukraine and warned residents to take special care as Russian strikes in different regions killed at least six people. “Tonight and in the coming hours, it is especially important to pay close attention to air raid warnings,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “The Russians have prepared for a massive attack. Please take care of yourselves.” Russian forces have staged a series of heavy attacks on Kyiv in the past few weeks and in other major cities. Strikes on Monday last week killed
YUCK OR YUM? While it is difficult to sell second-hand goods that are more than seven years old in Japan, they are still popular in foreign markets, an executive said Under a scorching sun in a Bangkok suburb, a whistle blew, and shouts filled the air as dozens of shoppers rushed into a warehouse bearing the sign “Japanese Second-Hand Store.” From bags and bicycles to surfboards and suitcases, the Japanese second-hand market is booming, with quality-conscious buyers in other Asian countries increasingly tapping into the circular economy trend. “What is considered garbage for them can still be useful in Thailand,” said 36-year-old Lookpoo Sathitpanyapon, who runs an online store selling toy keychains. “That bag, that bag,” one shopper shouted while racing through the warehouse, filled with everything from colorful toys
RSS