BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio -Domestic difficulties, financial problems with the family farm or a possible argument with his grandfather could have caused an 18-year-old to kill his family and friends in two farmhouses on graduation day, the sheriff said yesterday.
Authorities do not think they ever will know for sure what drove Scott Moody to go on the shooting spree because he killed most of the people who might know, then killed himself, Sheriff Michael Henry said at a news conference.
We concluded that we will never know what prompted Scott Moody to escalate to the point of committing these horrible crimes
he said.
Autopsy results showed that the gunshot wound to the head that killed Moody was self-inflicted, leading Logan County officials to believe he was responsible for five other Sunday morning deaths, Henry said.
Police said Moody, who would have graduated from Riverside High School on Sunday, shot his grandparents -Sharyl Shafer, 66, and Gary Shafer, 67 -as they made breakfast in their farmhouse that morning. He then returned to his mother's house a half mile away, where he shot his mother, sister and two friends before turning the .22-caliber rifle on himself.
The victims in Moody's home -mother Sheri Shafer, 37, and friends Megan Karus, 19, and Paige Harshbarger, 14 -all were sleeping when Moody fired the shots, Henry said.
Only Moody's 15-year-old sister, Stacy, survived. She remained hospitalized yesterday at Ohio State University in critical condition. Henry said he doubts she would be able to give much more information because she also was sleeping when she was shot.
The rifle Moody used is not a very loud weapon, Henry said, and the sound can be further muffled when used at close range.
Investigators still are tracing where the gun came from, Henry said.
The position of the rifle and other forensic evidence also point to Moody as the shooter, one investigator said. No evidence at the scene contradicted the murder- suicide theory.
Results of toxicology and forensic tests will take several weeks to return from the laboratory, Henry said.
Authorities previously would not say why they believed Moody -who left no note -was the gunman or what might have motivated the murder-suicide.
Moody's family struggled financially on its dairy farm, owing about $55,685 in property taxes. They also were embroiled in a long-standing inheritance battle, family friends said.
Although some who knew Moody, including a classmate and his former stepfather, said they doubt he could have committed the crime, Henry said the department does not suspect an outside shooter was involved, adding that disbelief is common in murder-suicide cases.
I've never had a case where I've had someone believe it he said.
Henry said members of the small community about 60 miles northwest of Columbus are troubled by speculation and questions that do not seem to have easy answers. But he stressed that the town must find a way to move on.
My whole concern is to start some sort of healing process he said.
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