Murder of Nick Corwin

Nicholas Brent Corwin was an eight-year-old boy who was shot and killed by Laurie Dann, inside an elementary school in Winnetka, Illinois, United States, on May 20, 1988. Dann also shot several other students, all of whom survived, then took a family hostage and set a fire in their house before committing suicide. Earlier that day, Dann had tried to poison several acquaintances and set fires in a school and a daycare.

People involved

Nick Corwin

Nick Corwin was born on April 9, 1980, to Joel and Linda Corwin in Chicago, Illinois. In school, he was a student athlete known for his sportsmanship and skill. His name has since been attached to a popular soccer field and playground in Winnetka, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

According to a report in People magazine, 1,500 people attended Corwin's funeral. Shortly after his death, playing on the meaning of his name (“giver of gifts”) his friends and schoolmates created a book, The Gifts that Nicholas Gave.

Following Corwin's death, Winnetka passed a handgun ban, which stood until D.C. vs Heller and subsequent NRA lawsuits.

Corwin is interred at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois.

Laurie Dann

Early life

Laurie Dann was born Laurie Wasserman was born October 18, 1957, and grew up in Glencoe, Illinois, a north suburb of Chicago. She was the daughter of Edith Joy and her husband, accountant Norman Wasserman.

Those who knew Dann described her as shy and withdrawn. She graduated from Winnetka's New Trier High School in 1975, and despite poor grades was able to attend Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. When her academic record improved, Dann transferred to the University of Arizona with the goal of becoming a teacher. She dated a pre-med student, but exhibited possessive and demanding behavior. In the summer of 1977, Dann attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, taking a course in home economics.

After her relationship failed in 1980, Dann moved back to her parents' home. She then transferred to Northwestern University to complete her degree, but she dropped out of all her classes and never graduated.

Marriage and divorce

In September 1982, Dann met and married Russell Dann, an executive in an insurance broker firm. However, the marriage quickly soured as Russell's family noted signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and strange behavior from his wife, including leaving trash around the house. Dann saw a psychiatrist for a short period, who identified her childhood and upbringing as a cause of her problems.

Dann and her husband separated in October 1985. The divorce negotiations were acrimonious, with Dann claiming that Russell was abusive. Over the following months, police were called to investigate various incidents involving Dann, including several harassing phone calls made to Russell and his family. In April 1986, Dann accused Russell of breaking into and vandalizing her parents' house, where she was then living. Shortly after she purchased a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 Magnum, telling the salesman that she needed it for self-defense. The police were concerned about her gun ownership and unsuccessfully tried to persuade Dann and her family that she should give up the gun.

In August 1986, Dann contacted her ex-boyfriend, who was by then a resident at a hospital, and claimed to have had his child. When he refused to believe her, Dann called the hospital where he worked and claimed her ex-boyfriend had raped her in the emergency room.

In September 1986, Russell accused Dann of stabbing him in his sleep with an icepick, despite not having seen his attacker. Police decided not to press charges based on a medical report which suggested that the injury might have been self-inflicted, as well as Russell's abrasive attitude towards investigators and a failed polygraph test. Russell and his family continued to receive harassing phone calls, and Dann was arrested for calls made to Russell's sister. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.

Just before their divorce was finalized in April 1987, Dann accused Russell of raping her. There were no physical signs supporting Laurie's claim, although she passed two polygraph tests. In May, Dann accused Russell of placing an incendiary device in her home. No charges were filed against Russell for either incident. Dann's parents believed her claims and supported her throughout. By this time, she was being treated by another psychiatrist for OCD and a "chemical imbalance"; the psychiatrist told police that he did not think Laurie was suicidal or homicidal.

Final year

Dann worked as a babysitter, and some employers were happy with the care she provided their children. However, others made complaints to police about damage to their furniture and the theft of food and clothes. Despite these complaints, no charges were filed. Dann's father paid for damages in one case.

In the summer of 1987, Dann sublet a university apartment in Evanston, Illinois. Once again, her strange behavior was noted, including riding up and down in elevators for hours, wearing rubber gloves to touch metal and leaving meat to rot in sofa cushions. She took no classes at the university. That autumn, Dann claimed she had received threatening letters from Russell and that he had sexually assaulted her in a parking lot, but police did not believe her claims. A few weeks later, she purchased a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson Model 30-1 revolver.

With her mental condition deteriorating, Dann and her family sought specialized help. In November 1987 she moved back to Wisconsin to live in a student residence while being observed by a psychiatrist who specialized in OCD. She had already begun taking clomipramine, a drug for OCD, and her new psychiatrist increased the dosage, adding lithium carbonate to reduce her mood swings and initiating behavioral therapy to work on her phobias and ritualistic behaviors. Despite the intervention, Dann's strange behavior continued, including riding elevators for long periods, changing television channels repetitively and an obsession with "good" and "bad" numbers. There were also concerns about whether Dann was bulimic.

Dann purchased a .22-caliber Beretta 21A Bobcat at the end of December 1987. In March 1988, she stopped attending her appointments with the psychiatrist and behavior therapist. At the same time, Dann began to make preparations for the attacks. She stole library books on poisons, and diluted arsenic and other chemicals from a lab. She also shoplifted clothes and wigs to disguise herself and was arrested for theft on one occasion. Both her psychiatrist and her father tried to persuade Dann to enter the hospital as an inpatient, but she refused.

Dann continued to make numerous hang-up phone calls to her former in-laws and babysitting clients. Eventually, the calls escalated to death threats. In May 1988, a letter, later confirmed to have been sent by Dann, was sent to the hospital administration where her ex-boyfriend worked, again accusing him of sexual assault. Since the phone calls were across state lines, a federal indictment against Dann was prepared. However, the ex-boyfriend, fearful of publicity, and concerned about Dann getting bail and then attempting to fulfill her death threats, decided to wait until other charges were filed in Illinois. That same month, a janitor found Dann lying in the fetal position inside a garbage bag in a trash room. This precipitated a search of her room and her departure back to Glencoe.

Attacks

During the days before May 20, 1988, Dann prepared rice cereal snacks and juice boxes poisoned with the diluted arsenic she had stolen in Wisconsin. She mailed them to a former acquaintance, ex-babysitting clients, her psychiatrist, her ex-husband and others. In the early morning hours of May 20, she personally delivered snacks and juice "samples" to some of the intended recipients. Other snacks were delivered to Alpha Tau Omega, Psi Upsilon and Kappa Sigma fraternity houses and Leverone Hall at Northwestern University. Notes were attached to some of the deliveries. The drinks were often leaking and the squares unpleasant-tasting, so few were actually consumed the items. In addition, the arsenic was highly diluted so nobody became seriously ill.

At about 9am, Dann arrived at the home of the Rushe family, former babysitting clients in Winnetka, to pick up their two youngest children. Instead of taking the children on the promised outing, she took them to Ravinia Elementary School in Highland Park, where she erroneously believed that both of her former sister-in-law's two sons were enrolled (in fact, one of Dann's intended targets was not even a student at the school). She left the two children in the car while she entered the school and tried to detonate an incendiary device in one of the corridors. After her departure, the small fire caused by the device was subsequently discovered by students and quickly extinguished by a teacher. Dann drove to a local daycare attended by her ex-sister-in-law's daughter and tried to enter the building with a plastic can of gasoline but was stopped by staff.

Dann next drove the children back to their home and offered them some arsenic-poisoned milk, but the boys spat it out because they found the taste strange. Once inside the house, Dann lured the children downstairs and used gasoline to set fire to the house, trapping them and their mother in the basement, though they managed to escape.

Dann drove three and a half blocks away to the Hubbard Woods Elementary School, armed with three handguns. She wandered into a second-grade classroom for a short while, then left. Finding a boy in the hallway, Dann pushed him into the boys' washroom and shot him with her Beretta pistol. Her Smith & Wesson revolver jammed when she tried to fire at two other boys, and she threw the weapon into the trash along with its spare ammunition. The boys fled the washroom and alerted staff. Dann then reentered the second-grade classroom, where students were working in groups on a bicycle safety test. She ordered all the children into the corner of the room. The teacher attempted to disarm Dann, managing to unload the Beretta in the struggle. Dann drew her other Smith & Wesson from the waistband of her shorts and aimed it at several groups of the students. She shot five children, killing Nick Corwin and wounding four others before fleeing in her car.

Dann was prevented from leaving the area by car because the roads were closed for a funeral cortege. She decided to drive her car backwards down the nearby street, but the road dead-ended into a private drive. Abandoning the car, Dann removed her bloodstained shorts and tied a blue garbage bag around her waist. With her two remaining guns she made her way through the woods and came upon the house of the Andrew family. Dann entered the house and met Mrs. Andrew and her twenty-year-old son, Philip, who were in the kitchen. She claimed she had been raped by a man in her car and had shot the rapist in the struggle.

Taking Dann's story at face value, the Andrews tried to convince her that she need not fear police because she had acted in self-defense. Mrs. Andrew gave Dann a pair of her daughter's pants to wear. While she was putting them on, Philip was able to pick up and pocket Dann's Beretta. At his suggestion, Dann called her mother, telling her she had done something terrible and that the police were involved. Philip took the phone and explained Dann's story about the rape and shooting, suggesting that Dann's mother to come pick her up; Dann's mother said she could not come because she did not have a car.

After Mr. Andrew arrived home, and the family began to insist that Dann give up her second gun. When Dann called her mother again, Mr. Andrew spoke with her, asking her to persuade Dann to give up the gun. During this call, Mrs. Andrew left the house and alerted police. Mr. Andrew told Dann that he would not remain in the house if she did not put down the gun and left. Dann ordered Philip to stay. Just before noon, Dann saw police advancing on the house and shot Philip in the chest. Philip managed to escape out the back door before collapsing and being rescued by first responders.

With the house surrounded, Dann went upstairs to a bedroom. Her parents and ex-husband were brought to the house. At about 7pm, an assault team entered the house while Dann's father attempted to get her attention with a bullhorn. The police found her body in the bedroom; she had shot herself in the mouth.

Aftermath

Corwin's murder inside an elementary school was among the first to feature prominently in the 24-hour news cycle, mostly revolving around Dann's mental state. Because no other school shooting had received such wide coverage, the murder is sometimes called “the first school shooting.” Since Corwin's murder, a school shooting has been widely reported almost every year. Others noted that the shooting marked an "end of innocence" for the prosperous community along Chicago's North Shore, which had not seen a murder in thirty years.

All but one of the victims wounded by Dann recovered from their injuries, including a girl who was shot and suffered severe internal injuries. The victims and their parents received extensive support to help them cope with the psychological after-effects of the attacks.

Parents and members of the community subsequently devoted many years to campaigning for gun control policy. Philip Andrew gave interviews about gun control from his hospital bed, and later became active in local and state gun control organizations as the executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence; he subsequently became a lawyer and then an FBI agent.

Dr. Donald Monroe, superintendent of Winnetka School District 36, noted "his 'safe' school" was "not as isolated and insulated as we thought." At the time of the shooting, Hubbard Woods, like many schools, was an open campus, with many doors, such as those to individual classrooms, kept open. After the shooting, a pattern of single-point entry emerged in more schools.

The shooting also fueled the debate about criteria for committing mentally people to health facilities against their will. Some favored the involuntary commitment of a person who is determined to be mentally ill and incapable of making informed decisions about treatment; civil libertarians like Benjamin Wolf opposed the idea, saying, "It would be a shame if we cut back on the civil liberties of literally millions of mentally ill people because of the occasional bizarre incident."

A book on the tragedy called Murder of Innocence, written by Eric Zorn, was adapted into a made-for-television film. In the film, Dann's name is changed to "Laurie Wade"; she was played by Valerie Bertinelli. Russell Dann helped coach Bertinelli while she was preparing for the role.

Search for a rationale

Some blamed Dann's parents for shielding her in spite of the signs of her deteriorating mental health. Investigations were hampered by their refusal to be interviewed by police or to provide access to Dann's psychiatric records, which were eventually obtained by court order. On the night of the shooting, Dann's parents allowed only a very brief search of her bedroom, after which they cleaned it and removed potential evidence. Police were also criticized for not sealing off the bedroom as a crime scene. Parents of the shooting victims subsequently sued Dann's parents for damages.

Further criticism was directed at Dann's psychiatrists for failing to identify or take action regarding the signs of her failing mental stability. At the time of her death, Dann was taking clomipramine, an unlicensed drug. The drug's effects were initially considered as contributing factors to Dann's mental decline, but ultimately ruled out.

Two newspaper clippings were found among Dann's possessions. One described a man who randomly killed two people in a public building. The other described a depressed young man who had attempted to commit suicide in the same way that Dann did; he survived and discovered that his brain injury had cured him of his OCD.

One theory of Dann's rationale was that she targeted people who had "disappointed" her in some way: her ex-husband, her former sister-in-law (through the firebombing attempts at her children's schools and daycare), her ex-boyfriend and his wife, the family whose children she had abducted, as well as former friends and babysitting clients.

Dann was also briefly investigated as a possible suspect in the Chicago Tylenol murders, but no direct connection was found.

In his book The Myth of Male Power, author Warren Farrell suggested that Dann's actions were an example of women's violence against men. He claimed, erroneously, that all of Dann's victims were male, that she had burned down a Young Men's Jewish Council, had burned two boys in a basement, had shot her own son and had justified the murder of Nick Corwin by claiming he was a rapist. Men's rights activists, academics, and the media have repeated Farrell's errors and conclusion. Farrell later issued a partial correction on his web site.

Footnotes

See also

• List of homicides in Illinois

References