Increased security promised when NIU students return
Northern Illinois University students will notice a "significant" increase in security when they return to campus Monday, authorities said today.
Meanwhile, investigators are still searching for the reason why 27-year-old Steve Kazmierczak stormed an NIU lecture hall on Valentine's Day, killing five and wounding 16 before turning the gun on himself.
"If there is a motive out there to be found, I'm confident … we will find it," said NIU Police Chief Donald Grady.
FBI authorities are analyzing the evidence and interviews of victims and family members of the gunman to work up a profile and identify a motive. An FBI agent said today it could be weeks before that work is complete and released to the public.
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At a press conference this afternoon on NIU's deserted campus, Grady said more than 120 people have been interviewed and that federal authorities are helping to analyze evidence.
The shooter's family and girlfriend are cooperating in the investigation, he said. He said previous reports about the girlfriend not being cooperative are not true.
Grady said the shooter hid the hard drive to his laptop - which was found in a DeKalb hotel room he stayed at for three nights before the shooting - and a computer chip to his cell phone. He also has said the shooter apparently didn't tell anyone what he was going to do.
"We can only surmise#8230; that he has done things to thwart the investigation," Grady said today.
Investigators still believe the gunman did not know anyone in the ocean science class at Cole Hall.
The gunman used to teach in the classroom as an NIU graduate student of sociology. His girlfriend, Jessica Baty of Wonder Lake, has said she had no idea her live-in boyfriend was planning the murders or was capable of them.
The shooter has a history of mental illness and started covering his body with bizarre tattoos and stockpiling weapons in the months before the assault. He told his godfather - who said he was unaware that his godson had mental-health issues - that he had recently broken up with his girlfriend and was "looking at girls at NIU."
The gunman also stopped taking antidepressants about three weeks ago. The shooter had recently been seeing a psychiatrist about once a month while studying mental health and criminal justice in the graduate school of social work at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
"My information is that he was behaving erratically - he was angry and more prone to outbursts," Grady said about the last few weeks of the shooter's life.
Baty and the shooter had dated on and off for two years and were living together in Champaign since the summer of 2007, when they both transferred from NIU to the graduate school of social work at U of I.
The gunman's body has been transported to a funeral home in Elk Grove Village, according to authorities. His godfather, Richard Grafer, said the body would be cremated. Funeral service plans were not being made public.
Grady said today that officers from other agencies would be added to beef up campus security when NIU's 25,000 students return to class on Monday. He declined to specify other security measures that will be taken.