How To Write A Research Paper On Laurie Duban School Shooting
Female School Shooter: Laurie Dann In the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, there has been one shooting which many have forgotten: the one reported case where a female was the offender in a school shooting. It has been reported that sixty percent of the shootings which have happened over the last three decades happened in small towns, and the perpetrator is almost always a young male (Calhoun). Laurie Dann is the exception to the rule. Born Laurie Wasserman on October 18, 1957 to Edith Joy, 27, and Norman Wasserman, 28, an accountant, she was a very, very quiet girl growing up (Papajohn and Kaplan). She had a brother, Mark, five years her senior. Laurie grew up near South Shore, a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. When she was seven her family moved to North Shore in Highland Park. Both in elementary and middle school, she was not known to have any close friends but always made good grades. In high school, after sophomore year, Laurie’s family moved to Glencoe where she attended New Trier High School. There Laurie did not seem to have many girlfriends but
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was known to be very popular with the boys. She tried out for cheerleading and the Girls Club, but didn’t make either which made her very angry. “I perceived a paranoia when girls were around,” a female classmate recalled. “She always had a boyfriend and was really clingy, draped around him. That really struck me, that she was somehow frightened and had a real unhealthy attachment to boys” (Papajohn and Kaplan). Laurie’s father always lavished gifts on his daughter; however their family lacked emotion or displays of affection. After high school, Laurie attended four different universities; however she never earned a degree. In fall of 1976, she entered Drake University in Des Moines as an education major. A year later she transferred to the University of Arizona in Tucson as a liberal arts major. At this time she had a steady boyfriend for two years, a pre-med student. They broke up when he was about to enter medical school. In the summer of 1980, she left the university and began dating Russell Dann. He worked for the family business, Dann Brothers Insurance Company. They were married on September 11, 1982. By now Laurie had enrolled and withdrawn from six courses at Northwestern University’s continuing education program. Once they were married, Laurie did not need to work because her husband was earning a six figure income. So she stayed home all day. Russell would work hard all day and by the time he got home, Laurie would have just gotten out of bed. He began to notice what he first thought to be odd superstitions, at stoplights she would open the car door and tap her foot on the pavement and she would refuse to close the kitchen cabinets (Papajohn and Kaplan). He then began to realize that her problems were more serious. Laurie’s father was part owner of a clothing store and he would always bring her new clothes. They would end up in heaps on the closet floor and she would leave the house looking like a homeless woman. Laurie did start seeing a psychiatrist, but by March 1984 she began refusing treatment. A letter from her psychiatrist begged her to return for treatment and told her she could not rely on medication to solve her problems. Later in 1985, after they had purchased a nice house, Laurie and Russell separated. In January 1986, Laurie filed for divorce. That summer Laurie’s ex-boyfriend, now a doctor, began receiving harassing phone calls. She also bought a .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum. She told her parents it was for protection. Her parents told Russell, and Russell in turn told the police. In August 1986, Laurie met another man, John Childs.
His mother commented on Laurie’s idiosyncrasies. She remembers her constantly washing her hands, opening doors and picking things up with her sleeves, and not liking to be touched. That September, Russell Dann was stabbed in the chest with an ice pick as he slept. No charges were ever filed. She continued to make harassing phone calls, but was never charged because of insufficient evidence. Her former in-laws begged her parents to institutionalize their daughter, but the Wasserman’s resisted (Brower, Bell, Breo…). Laurie and Russell’s divorce was final in April of 1987. That summer she took an apartment at Northwestern in Evanston, which she sublet from a student. She became a suspect in several thefts and disruptive incidents at the building. At this time is when Laurie decided to take up
babysitting. Even with her past, those who had her watch their children said she was very good with them. Laurie’s babysitting jobs consisted of theft also when neighbors began seeing her carrying bags of food out of one couple’s home. Afterward the couple found their couch sliced up and holes drilled in the kitchen cabinets. Her father ended up having to pay off two families because of her stealing food and clothes and damaging people’s property. People magazine reported, “He kept buying people off” (Brower, Bell, Breo…). It got to the point where she was asked by Glencoe’s public safety director not to seek out any more babysitting jobs. At the same time, the University was trying to evict her. Her dad came to her rescue and she moved out in September. According to the Chicago Tribune, “When school officials inspected her apartment, they found urine stained floors and rancid meat on the counter.” She moved to Madison sometime later. In the meantime, Laurie also bought two more guns, one of which she would use to take her own life. In January of 1988, Laurie moved to the Towers, off campus student housing in Madison, and began seeing the university psychiatrist. He assured a detective who was assigned to Laurie’s harassing phone calls case (she was making harassing phone calls to many different people from her past), that she would not harm herself or anyone else. She led the students on campus to believe that she was a sophomore studying journalism there. By then she was 30 years old. They began referring to her as the “psycho elevator lady” because she would ride the elevator for hours. In March, Laurie was seen in a lab at the University of Wisconsin Hospital where three days later arsenic and lead were reported missing. Laurie left Madison on May 16, 1988. All of these events led up to a day like any other day. On May 20, 1988, Laurie left her Glencoe home with the three guns and bundles of food laced with arsenic and lead. As reported in the Chicago Tribune, “She delivered the food to two Northwestern fraternities, babysitting clients and people she knew only tenuously. Her psychiatrist and her ex-husband received packages of tainted juice in the mail” (Papajohn and Kaplan). She went to the home of one of her babysitting clients who still trusted her, and they allowed her to take their two children on an outing. She drove to Ravina Elementary School in Highland Park and had the children wait in the car while she entered the school and set off a fire bomb in the hallway. There were no casualties (Calhoun). She then drove the children back to their home and brought them to the basement where their mother was doing laundry. She set the basement stairs on fire with gasoline, and thankfully the family escaped through the basement windows unharmed. Laurie Dann then drove to Hubbard Woods Elementary School. She entered a second grade classroom. It was Bicycle Safety Day, and the children of this class had just come in from outside after passing their riding tests. They were getting ready for the written exam, and their substitute teacher, Amy Moses, thought nothing of Laurie wandering into her classroom unannounced. She figured her for a college student coming to observe the class which was not unusual. Dann then got up and walked into the boys’ restroom with a gun drawn. It was here she shot 6 year old Robert Trossman in the chest and stomach and left him along with the weapon on the floor. She returned to the classroom shutting the door behind her and ordered Moses to take the children into the corner. Moses told her no. Dann then told her she had a gun. Moses got to the classroom door to yell for help. Dann then opened fire on a group of children near the front of the classroom. Four were critically injured: Lindsay Fisher, 8, Peter Munro, 8, Kathryn Miller, 7, and Mark Teborek, 8. Another, Nicholas Corwin, 8, was killed instantly when a bullet went right through his heart. He had pushed his best friend out of the line of fire. Laurie Dann left the school, and ended up running through the kitchen of the parents of 20 year old Phillip Andrew who was home visiting then from the University of Illinois. She shot him in the chest then fled upstairs to a child’s bedroom and put her .32 in her mouth and took her own life. Six victims and one fatality could be the reason no one has ever heard of Laurie Dann before now, because her body count wasn’t as high compared to the most recent school shootings we’ve had. This was really the first shooting ever to happen in a school. Laurie Dann had police files in three states and a record of psychiatric illness, and somehow she still managed to obtain a permit for three handguns. How could this happen? The Winnetka retired police chief, Herb Timm stated, “This is not an urban problem. It’s not an inner city problem. It’s everyone’s problem.” (School shooting remembered 20 years later). Phillip Andrew at the age of 20 began his “education about the violent nature of modern America, about the way his government really works, about shootings so epidemic that some people no longer regard them as a crime issue but rather as a public health menace” (Halperin).
Works Cited
Papajohn, George and Joel Kaplan. “The Many Faces of Laurie Dann.” Chicago Tribune.
5 June 1988. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
Brower, Montgomery and Bonnie Bell, Dennis Breo, Jody Brott, Judy Hevrdejs, Barbara Kleban
Mills, Civia Tamarkin and Justin Greenberg. “Mad Enough to Kill.” People. 6 June
1988. Vol.29. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
Calhoun, Patricia. “School shooter Laurie Dann only killed one, but her crime was memorable for other reasons too.” Denver Westword Blog. 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
“School shooting remembered 20 years later.” Editorial. ABC News Chicago. 20 May 2008.
Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
Halperin, Jennifer. “The education of a crusader.” Northern Illinois University Libraries.
14 Dec. 1993. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
was known to be very popular with the boys. She tried out for cheerleading and the Girls Club, but didn’t make either which made her very angry. “I perceived a paranoia when girls were around,” a female classmate recalled. “She always had a boyfriend and was really clingy, draped around him. That really struck me, that she was somehow frightened and had a real unhealthy attachment to boys” (Papajohn and Kaplan). Laurie’s father always lavished gifts on his daughter; however their family lacked emotion or displays of affection. After high school, Laurie attended four different universities; however she never earned a degree. In fall of 1976, she entered Drake University in Des Moines as an education major. A year later she transferred to the University of Arizona in Tucson as a liberal arts major. At this time she had a steady boyfriend for two years, a pre-med student. They broke up when he was about to enter medical school. In the summer of 1980, she left the university and began dating Russell Dann. He worked for the family business, Dann Brothers Insurance Company. They were married on September 11, 1982. By now Laurie had enrolled and withdrawn from six courses at Northwestern University’s continuing education program. Once they were married, Laurie did not need to work because her husband was earning a six figure income. So she stayed home all day. Russell would work hard all day and by the time he got home, Laurie would have just gotten out of bed. He began to notice what he first thought to be odd superstitions, at stoplights she would open the car door and tap her foot on the pavement and she would refuse to close the kitchen cabinets (Papajohn and Kaplan). He then began to realize that her problems were more serious. Laurie’s father was part owner of a clothing store and he would always bring her new clothes. They would end up in heaps on the closet floor and she would leave the house looking like a homeless woman. Laurie did start seeing a psychiatrist, but by March 1984 she began refusing treatment. A letter from her psychiatrist begged her to return for treatment and told her she could not rely on medication to solve her problems. Later in 1985, after they had purchased a nice house, Laurie and Russell separated. In January 1986, Laurie filed for divorce. That summer Laurie’s ex-boyfriend, now a doctor, began receiving harassing phone calls. She also bought a .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum. She told her parents it was for protection. Her parents told Russell, and Russell in turn told the police. In August 1986, Laurie met another man, John Childs.
His mother commented on Laurie’s idiosyncrasies. She remembers her constantly washing her hands, opening doors and picking things up with her sleeves, and not liking to be touched. That September, Russell Dann was stabbed in the chest with an ice pick as he slept. No charges were ever filed. She continued to make harassing phone calls, but was never charged because of insufficient evidence. Her former in-laws begged her parents to institutionalize their daughter, but the Wasserman’s resisted (Brower, Bell, Breo…). Laurie and Russell’s divorce was final in April of 1987. That summer she took an apartment at Northwestern in Evanston, which she sublet from a student. She became a suspect in several thefts and disruptive incidents at the building. At this time is when Laurie decided to take up
babysitting. Even with her past, those who had her watch their children said she was very good with them. Laurie’s babysitting jobs consisted of theft also when neighbors began seeing her carrying bags of food out of one couple’s home. Afterward the couple found their couch sliced up and holes drilled in the kitchen cabinets. Her father ended up having to pay off two families because of her stealing food and clothes and damaging people’s property. People magazine reported, “He kept buying people off” (Brower, Bell, Breo…). It got to the point where she was asked by Glencoe’s public safety director not to seek out any more babysitting jobs. At the same time, the University was trying to evict her. Her dad came to her rescue and she moved out in September. According to the Chicago Tribune, “When school officials inspected her apartment, they found urine stained floors and rancid meat on the counter.” She moved to Madison sometime later. In the meantime, Laurie also bought two more guns, one of which she would use to take her own life. In January of 1988, Laurie moved to the Towers, off campus student housing in Madison, and began seeing the university psychiatrist. He assured a detective who was assigned to Laurie’s harassing phone calls case (she was making harassing phone calls to many different people from her past), that she would not harm herself or anyone else. She led the students on campus to believe that she was a sophomore studying journalism there. By then she was 30 years old. They began referring to her as the “psycho elevator lady” because she would ride the elevator for hours. In March, Laurie was seen in a lab at the University of Wisconsin Hospital where three days later arsenic and lead were reported missing. Laurie left Madison on May 16, 1988. All of these events led up to a day like any other day. On May 20, 1988, Laurie left her Glencoe home with the three guns and bundles of food laced with arsenic and lead. As reported in the Chicago Tribune, “She delivered the food to two Northwestern fraternities, babysitting clients and people she knew only tenuously. Her psychiatrist and her ex-husband received packages of tainted juice in the mail” (Papajohn and Kaplan). She went to the home of one of her babysitting clients who still trusted her, and they allowed her to take their two children on an outing. She drove to Ravina Elementary School in Highland Park and had the children wait in the car while she entered the school and set off a fire bomb in the hallway. There were no casualties (Calhoun). She then drove the children back to their home and brought them to the basement where their mother was doing laundry. She set the basement stairs on fire with gasoline, and thankfully the family escaped through the basement windows unharmed. Laurie Dann then drove to Hubbard Woods Elementary School. She entered a second grade classroom. It was Bicycle Safety Day, and the children of this class had just come in from outside after passing their riding tests. They were getting ready for the written exam, and their substitute teacher, Amy Moses, thought nothing of Laurie wandering into her classroom unannounced. She figured her for a college student coming to observe the class which was not unusual. Dann then got up and walked into the boys’ restroom with a gun drawn. It was here she shot 6 year old Robert Trossman in the chest and stomach and left him along with the weapon on the floor. She returned to the classroom shutting the door behind her and ordered Moses to take the children into the corner. Moses told her no. Dann then told her she had a gun. Moses got to the classroom door to yell for help. Dann then opened fire on a group of children near the front of the classroom. Four were critically injured: Lindsay Fisher, 8, Peter Munro, 8, Kathryn Miller, 7, and Mark Teborek, 8. Another, Nicholas Corwin, 8, was killed instantly when a bullet went right through his heart. He had pushed his best friend out of the line of fire. Laurie Dann left the school, and ended up running through the kitchen of the parents of 20 year old Phillip Andrew who was home visiting then from the University of Illinois. She shot him in the chest then fled upstairs to a child’s bedroom and put her .32 in her mouth and took her own life. Six victims and one fatality could be the reason no one has ever heard of Laurie Dann before now, because her body count wasn’t as high compared to the most recent school shootings we’ve had. This was really the first shooting ever to happen in a school. Laurie Dann had police files in three states and a record of psychiatric illness, and somehow she still managed to obtain a permit for three handguns. How could this happen? The Winnetka retired police chief, Herb Timm stated, “This is not an urban problem. It’s not an inner city problem. It’s everyone’s problem.” (School shooting remembered 20 years later). Phillip Andrew at the age of 20 began his “education about the violent nature of modern America, about the way his government really works, about shootings so epidemic that some people no longer regard them as a crime issue but rather as a public health menace” (Halperin).
Works Cited
Papajohn, George and Joel Kaplan. “The Many Faces of Laurie Dann.” Chicago Tribune.
5 June 1988. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
Brower, Montgomery and Bonnie Bell, Dennis Breo, Jody Brott, Judy Hevrdejs, Barbara Kleban
Mills, Civia Tamarkin and Justin Greenberg. “Mad Enough to Kill.” People. 6 June
1988. Vol.29. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
Calhoun, Patricia. “School shooter Laurie Dann only killed one, but her crime was memorable for other reasons too.” Denver Westword Blog. 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
“School shooting remembered 20 years later.” Editorial. ABC News Chicago. 20 May 2008.
Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
Halperin, Jennifer. “The education of a crusader.” Northern Illinois University Libraries.
14 Dec. 1993. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.