Two Colorado teen girls have been arrested for allegedly plotting a mass shooting at Mountain Vista High School in the Denver area. Brooke Higgins and Sienna Johnson, both 16, will be tried as adults on conspiracy to commit first degree murder charges.
Brooke Higgins and Sienna Johnson made “overt acts” to plan on purchasing the guns needed to carry out a mass shooting at Mountain Vista High School, the Castle Rock assistant prosecuting attorney Jason Siers stated in court on Thursday. Mass shooting conducted by women, especially teenage, young women, is extremely rare in the United States. According to the prosecutor’s office, both Higgins and Johnson “worshiped” both the Columbine high school shooters and the hit movie, Natural Born Killers , MSN reports.
The Colorado teen girls initiated high school mass shooting plot just before Christmas and spent time practicing their aim using BB guns, according to the county prosecutor. Brooke Johnson reportedly told police officials that when she was released from jail she would go right back to planning the killing spree. Both Johnson and Higgins had allegedly started looking for places where they could buy a gun and frequented a website called Armslist which has been dubbed the “Craigslist for guns.”
Brooke Higgins is second teen charged as an adult in Mountain Vista H.S. murder plot – https://t.co/DGL0IbUoCQ pic.twitter.com/rwSrjtKYqa
— Denver7 News (@DenverChannel) January 14, 2016
Photos of the Colorado teen girls accused of plotting a mass shooting at Mountain Vista High School posted to social media reportedly show images of “blood spattered walls” and handwritten diary entries detailing their angst. Brooke Higgins and Sienna Johnson allegedly had comprised a list of specific targets at the Highlands Ranch high school, but also noted that anyone they encountered inside the school could become a potential victim.
Castle Rock District Court Judge Paul King set Brooke Higgins’ bond at $1 million yesterday afternoon. The teenager who allegedly wanted to gun down her peers in a mass shooting, cried in the courtroom as the bail amount was read. On Wednesday, Sienna Johnson reportedly expressed equal fright and despair as the judge issued an equally-high bail in her case. Both of the teens were scheduled to undergo psychological evaluations. According to Higgins’ attorney, his client was placed on a suicide watch for a short amount of time.
Due to the age of the accused mass shooting planners, most of the details of the court proceedings have been sealed. Judge King denied requests by the media to remove the seal, but did state that the trials of Higgins and Johnson will take place in open court, Fox 31 Denver reports.
“The idea that the incident at Columbine is to be admired, that the people who did that are gods or heroes …” Judge King before pausing his thought. “There are parents in this city that want to make sure their kids are protected.”
Bond set at $1M for ‘dangerous’ teen in Mountain Vista High School murder plot – https://t.co/WbAY3J2ExH pic.twitter.com/4o0xnuzeJx
— Denver7 News (@DenverChannel) January 6, 2016
Brooke Higgins and Sienna Johnson allegedly plotted the school mass shooting in a region of Colorado, which has already face horrific tragedy since the Columbine High School in 1999. The school where two teens killers took so many lives is located about 15 minutes northwest of the Denver suburb. It is just a short 30 minutes drive to the city of Aurora where a movie theater erupted in a shower of bullets. About an hour away is Colorado Springs, where two shootings occurred in the fall of 2015.
The district attorney’s office unearthed the Mountain Vista High School mass shooting after an anonymous tip was given on a text hotline, which was created after the Columbine High School shooting. The prosecutor revealed that a Brooke Higgins had take an photo of the nearby high school where the carnage had occurred more than a decade ago and placed it in her diary. Higgins had also reportedly researched the shooters online and wrote in her journal that she wished that she could have participated in the mass shooting with them.
On social media posts, which now appear to have been largely removed from the internet. Brooke Johnson quoted lines from Natural Born Killers. He attorney said that Higgins has suffered from drug abuse in the past and began undergoing therapy two years ago for depression.
“Who’s got what it takes to … make this school a living f*****g nightmare? God, Brooke and me will be unstoppable,” Colorado investigators say Higgins wrote in her diary.
Sienna Johnson reportedly used a blog to detail her childhood struggles and mentioned her parents divorcing when she was a toddler and frequent cross-country moves she had endured as a result. The teenage girl accused of plotting a mass shooting also complained that she never had a “normal family” and that she was kicked out of her dad’s home in middle school after she started rebelling.
Higgins’ attorney claims that his client has not broken the law and is being accused of “thought crimes” and also alleges that she barely knew Sienna Johnson.
Both of the Colorado teen girls accused of plotting a mass shooting at Mountain Vista High School will be back in court for preliminary hearings in late February or early March.
[Image via AP Photo/Brennan Linsley]