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Parole Denied For Teen With Hit List

Police: Teen Planned To Kill Students

POSTED: 10:13 am EDT October 24, 2008
UPDATED: 3:08 am EDT October 25, 2008

Parole has been denied for a former Newington High School student accused of plotting to kill his classmates.

In pleading his case to the Parole Board, Frank Fechteler said, “I just want to be the most positive person I can be. I can't; I don't know what people are thinking. They could always be scared of me, but if you could hear me right now, you have absolutely nothing to fear about me. I'm a changed person now.”

Fechteler was arrested after police said he posted violent videos on the Internet that led them to discover the teen's plan.

Police said Fechteler told officers that he made bombs in the basement of his home and exploded them in nearby woods.

According to an affidavit, Fechteler told officers that he planned to bring pipe bombs to Newington High School and kill "people that had been picking on him for a long time."

During their investigation into Fechteler, police said they found that Fechteler had access to his father's weapons, had a history of building homemade bombs, and had even compiled a hit list of 30 Newington High students he planned to kill.

They said he also kept a folder in his desk with pictures of the Columbine killers on the front and a minute-by-minute timeline for April 10, 2007. The timeline detailed everything, they said, from when he would get up to when the attack would begin and how he'd end it by drinking vodka and committing suicide.

“This is something, at the time, that I fantasized about,” said Fechteler. “I wasn't going to do this thing. Nothing was going to happen on that day. It would have been any other day in school."

But more than 40 members of the Newington High School community wrote letters calling Fechteler a threatening predator and a danger to society. They urged that he not be released, especially since some of the students on his kill list are still at the high school.

The parole board agreed with those letters. Members said they'd never seen a case with so many victims and that Fechteler didn't convince them that he fully appreciated what he'd done.

“If you can't tell us what happened or what caused it or what led up to it, how can we be comfortable releasing you and be confident it won't happen again?” asked Parole Board Chairman Robert Farr.

Fechteler was sentenced to three years in prison after being charged with making bombs in February 2007. He pleaded guilty to the bomb-making charges last November.

Fechteler was denied parole Friday and will not be eligible for another parole hearing until April 2009. He will remain in custody until then.


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