From the Rural Blog
A rural newspaper editor recently had a horrific connection with the news she was covering.
When Mary Garrison Minyard, editor of the Marshall County Daily Online, arrived at the scene of last week’s school shooting in Benton, she discovered that the alleged shooter was her son.
Her colleague Ann Beckett said she went to comfort Minyard and take over the story, Andrew Wolfson reports for the Courier Journal in Louisville.
Marshall County students welcomed back to school.
Two students were fatally shot and 14 others wounded at Marshall County High School on Jan. 23.
The alleged shooter, 15-year-old Gabe Parker, has been charged as a juvenile with two counts of murder and 12 counts of assault. Prosecutors plan to have him tried as an adult.
His name has not been officially released.
Neighbors said that Minyard does not keep guns in her home. Minyard shared custody with Gabe’s father, Austin Parker.
Gabe’s stepmother, Jennifer Lynn Parker, who divorced Parker following a domestic violence incident in 2016, said Parker was “controlling and a bully” and has “always had a short fuse.”
Classmates described Gabe as a quiet boy who was well-liked by others in the school band, but said he was “snappy” after Christmas break and had talked about violence and an interest in joining the Mafia.
Other students said on social media that he may have been bullied, Wolfson reports.
The Rural Blog is a service of the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky.
