Ohio School Shooter Was Once Friends With Victims

An eyewitness to the Chardon High School shooting has identified the gunman as fellow student TJ Lane. Junior Nate Mueller tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he was sitting in the cafeteria with his friends when he heard a gunshot and felt a sting on his ear. "My friends were crawling on the floor, and one of my friends was bent over the table, and he was shot," he says. "I turned around and saw [TJ] standing with a gun and I saw him take a shot."

Mueller says he and his friends had been close with Lane in middle school, but had drifted apart in high school. He says one of his friends, Russell King, had recently started dating Lane's ex-girlfriend. "He was silent the whole time," Mueller says. "That's what made it so random." The Plain Dealer has identified the student who died in the shootings; the Daily Beast has uncovered a disturbing Facebook post of Lane's from Dec. 30. (More Chardon High School stories.)