Santana High shooter denied parole

The gunman who opened fire at Santana High School more than two decades ago, killing two students and injuring 13 people on the Santee campus, was denied parole Tuesday.

Charles Andrew “Andy” Williams, 38, is serving a sentence of 50 years to life in prison. The hearing was his first chance for parole since he was arrested following the March 5, 2001, school shooting.

“You pose an unreasonable risk to public safety, therefore this panel finds that you are not suitable for parole at this time,” concluded Parole Board Commissioner Kevin Chappell, who made the decision jointly with Deputy Commissioner Letizia Pingitore.

The two panelists said they weighed numerous factors, including testimony from prosecutors, Williams, his attorney and those affected by the violence, as well as Williams' lack of a criminal record, his age at the time of the crime and his difficult childhood.

And although Williams expressed remorse for the mass murder – he once apologized to the victims and named all the people he shot that day – the police chief told Williams that he continued to hold “views that show that you have not sufficiently changed.”

“From your testimony today,” Chappell said, “it is really unclear whether you understand why you committed this horrific act of violence.”

Williams was 15 years old when he brought 40 rounds of ammunition and a pistol to school, stormed out of a bathroom stall and opened fire. Students Bryan Zuckor (14) and Randy Gordon (17) were killed in the attack and 13 others were injured.

A total of 22 victims spoke via a virtual platform at the nearly seven-hour hearing on Tuesday at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton. One man who had the gun pointed at him that day spoke in favor of Williams' release; the rest called for him to remain behind bars.

“The moment I was told, 'I am sorry to tell you that your son Randy has died,' destroyed everything, destroyed my world, destroyed my family. I was in shock,” Mary Gordon-Rayborn, who lost her son that day, said Tuesday.

“How could he be dead? How could he never say 'I love you, Mommy,'” she said, sobbing violently. “I've had this nightmare for 23 years.”

Gordon-Rayborn said she was homeless and had to endure “loneliness, hunger and all the other horrors that come with that.” She pleaded with the board to keep Williams locked up.

“His actions were and will forever be the story of my life,” she said.

Rachel Maurice was 16 and was on her way to see her boyfriend Randy that day when she saw the barrel of Williams' gun.

“The bullets went past me,” she said. “I'll never understand why they didn't hit me and go past me, but instead hit Randy and killed him.”

Maurice is battling terminal breast cancer. “I have used all my strength to be here, to face Andy and to speak out against his release,” she said.

Crystal Varela, also a former classmate, said she hid in a small closet after the shooting, called her mother and told her that someone had shot “and there was so much blood.”

“We didn't know he would take out his anger and frustration on so many innocent victims who had done nothing wrong,” Varela said.

Karen Degischer, then-principal of Santana High School, said Tuesday that thousands of lives were scarred by that day. Of the more than 1,800 students enrolled at the school at the time, a post-mortem survey found that 361 said they had directly experienced the shooting and 704 witnessed the event.

“The heinous, despicable and cruel acts of Andy Williams do not warrant parole,” said the retired educator.

Caley Anderson was one of those students and he was the only victim or witness to demand his release.

“I was shot. Andy looked at me, pointed the gun at me, pulled the trigger and missed,” Anderson recalled.

He said he was troubled that Williams remained incarcerated and believed his former classmate could be safely released.

“The person he is today owes me no apology other than to work hard and improve,” Anderson said.

The possibility of parole review was made possible by reforms at the state level that take into account an offender's youth at the time of the crime. Young offenders must undergo a parole hearing by the 25th year of their sentence. However, this does not guarantee release and prosecutors have strongly opposed it.

“I am grateful to the parole board for listening to the victims in this case whose lives were forever changed by the defendant's intentional and cruel actions that terrorized an innocent school campus,” District Attorney Summer Stephan, who opposed the release, said in a statement late Tuesday. “Neither the 13 injured victims nor the families of the two murdered students can get back what the defendant took from them.”

Williams' attorney, Laura Sheppard, pointed to her client's age and his difficult life at the time of the shooting. She said he had had little contact with his mother after his parents divorced when he was three, was bullied at school, sexually abused by an adult and ignored when he needed help.

“None of this excuses his actions, but it explains them,” she argued on Tuesday.

Still, Sheppard said, “Williams himself bears the burden of the shooting entirely on his shoulders. He feels extreme remorse.”

She said he was “a fully rehabilitated 38-year-old man” and no longer the frightened 15-year-old child he once was.

Williams wept as he read a prepared statement to the panel calling his actions “wrong, cruel and callous.”

“This crime has affected so many people and continues to affect them today,” he said. “I had no right to intrude into their lives and change them forever.”

“I turned their joy into fear, anger, confusion, sadness and trauma.”

Chappell, the commissioner, pointed out inconsistencies in Williams' account of the shooting. Earlier in the hearing, Williams testified that he had planned to take the gun to school to kill a teacher who he believed had disrespected him in class a few days earlier and then commit suicide.

Williams testified that he put the gun to his head in a bathroom stall but then decided to shoot others instead.

When questioned by Chappell, Williams said he thought, “Why should I be the one dying? Why should I be the one suffering now?”

“In my opinion, all students were responsible at that moment.”

Chappell said the statements contradicted earlier accounts suggesting the mass murder was deliberate.

“If your intention was to shoot that teacher and kill yourself, why did you need 40 rounds of ammunition to carry out that final act? That simply doesn't make sense,” the commissioner said.

Assistant District Attorney John Cross said Williams “still lacks insight, he still cannot explain why this incident occurred. It is all someone else's fault.”

Williams will have another chance at a parole hearing in three years, but he can request to reschedule the hearing.

Originally published: September 10, 2024 at 5:03 p.m.