difficult to fit in. He had constantly been bullied by his peers due to his inability to look the part of a trendy, popular student. He came from a broken home and was a studious type who was very awkward within himself. Even though Woodham had extreme intelligence, he lacked other skills that are held in higher regard than brain power such as physical prowess, charisma and humour, things that get you liked at school.
But it wasn’t just his high-school peers who had made Woodham’s life a living hell, his mother, Mary Woodham, was also guilty of emotional abuse. She regularly told him that he was the reason that his father, John Woodham had left her. She would also tell her son that he was fat, stupid and would never amount to much, unlike his extremely popular older brother.
Woodham finally found some acceptance in 1996 when he got together with his class mate Christina Menefee. Not only was Christina his first girlfriend but she was also his first ‘real’ friend and he fell in love instantly. He would walk her to her classes, take her to the cinema and generally dote on her. But after only two months together, the novelty had worn off for Christina, she was at the age where boyfriends changed at a vast rate. She split up with Luke and was soon making fun and taunting him just like the rest of the students at Pearl High. Little did she know the effect that breaking-up with him was going to have on both of their lives.
Luke Woodham was devastated. He could not eat or sleep, all he could think about was the girl who had made him live a little who had then gone on to knock him right back down. He believed that she was a Christian that had made him hate God, and for that he was angry.
It was shortly after their split that 19-year-old Grant Boyette befriended Woodham. Boyette told Woodham that he worshiped Satan and admired Hitler, and asked if he would like to join his group. Boyette said to Woodham: ‘I think you’ve got the potential to do something great.’
This was the first time in a long while that Woodham had been made to feel special, for once it was him and not the high school jock who had something to offer. Woodham really took Boyette’s words on board and before long he was a practicing Satanist in a group going by the name of ‘The Kroth’.
What finally confirmed this new belief for Woodham was when Boyette cast a spell and the next day one of their school peers was run over and killed by a car. Woodham suddenly believed that as a member of The Kroth he had a deadly power over people and could use it however he wished.
The seven boys that made up The Kroth would participate in role-play games, such as Star Wars, and Boyette would get Woodham and the other five boys to swear allegiance to him and to Satan. They allegedly discussed and planned to overthrow the school, kill a selection of people and then flee to Cuba. They were boys who had never before in their lives fitted in with any social clique, and at long last they belonged.
It is alleged that Boyette really started to get inside Woodham’s mind, by constantly bringing up his treatment by ex-girlfriend Christina. Boyette would tell Woodham that he was spineless and worthless if he didn’t seek revenge on people like her.
By the summer of 1997, Luke Woodham had started to experience hallucinations in which red cloaked demons with blood red eyes would visit him at night. He would also hear Boyette’s voice telling him to command the demons to attack people on behalf of Satan.
Throughout September, Woodham’s emotional state got worse, he did not care for his life any more and was reading more and more Satanic text given to him by Boyette.
On September 28, 1997, Woodham confided in his friend, Lucas Thomson, telling him that he planned to kill his mother so that he could steal her car, take his brother’s gun and then drive to school and kill people he didn’t like. Lucas did not tell anybody about this conversation until after the events that were about to happen.
At around 5 a.m. on October 1, 1997, Woodham got up and made his way to the kitchen where he picked up a butcher’s knife and a baseball bat. He then entered the room of his still sleeping mother. He repeatedly stabbed and beat her with the bat until she was dead.
Woodham then calmly embarked on cleaning the walls and floor, and putting his blood soaked clothes in the washing machine. A couple of hours later he spoke to both Thomson and Boyette and told them what he had just done.
At around 8 a.m., Woodham climbed into his dead mother’s car with his brother’s rifle in tow and headed to Pearl High School. Upon arrival Woodham handed some papers to Justin Sledge, another Kroth member, and then picked up his rifle and headed towards the area where hundreds of students were waiting for lessons to begin.
Christina Menefee and best friend Lydia Dew were leaning by a post chatting when Woodham approached them. He waited until he was at point blank range and then pulled the trigger of his brother’s hunting rifle. He did this twice into each of the girls bodies and then headed towards the group of students who were running for their lives. He fired the gun repeatedly until he was finally out of ammunition and then made his way back to the car to re-load.
It was here that Woodham was restrained by the deputy head and arrested.
On June 5, 1998, a circuit court jury found Luke Woodham guilty of his mother’s murder and was sentenced to life behind bars. The following week on June 12, 1998, Woodham was found guilty on two counts of murder and seven counts of aggravated assault. he was sentenced to another two life imprisonments plus 20 years for each of the seven assaults.
His defence had tried to plea insanity in the hope of a lesser charge but his emotional testimony failed to convince the jury of this.
During police interviews prior to the court case Woodham said that he felt that nobody cared for him and that he could not find any reason not to go ahead with what he did.
Even though he was seen by the jury as not being insane, surely it takes quite a bit of mental instability to commit such hateful attacks? He was not forced into doing the things that he did but if one of the only people willing to be your friend is the same person brain washing you with ideas about the devil it is sure to have an effect on you if you are not 100 per cent sane. What Woodham did can never be forgiven or forgotten but he should have had the opportunity to channel this hatred through more conventional means and not through murderous worship.
PEER PRESSURE PROSECUTION QUASHED
Grant Boyette and Justin Sledge were expecting to be tried as accessories but delays occurred so that more evidence could be sought.
On December 22, 1998, 18-year-old Justin Sledge was freed when Mississippi prosecutors withdrew their request for an indictment on him due to lack of evidence.
The teenager, who had also been a member of Boyette’s cult of Satanic worship – The Kroth, could have faced life imprisonment if he had been found guilty of the alleged role that prosecutors said he had had in the murders. On top of the lack of evidence, in a taped interview, Luke Woodham said that Sledge had not been involved.
Grant Boyette was a different matter. He had been the leader of the satanic group, the empowering force who had made his weak-minded and unloved followers feel special. Had he enough control that peer pressure had made Woodham commit the terrible atrocities that he did? Or would Woodham still have taken out his anger and hatred of the world on innocent people if he had never encountered Boyette? The law courts couldn’t even answer this, and his trial was delayed time and time again right up until the year 2000.
In January, 2000 Boyette was still scheduled to face a murder trial on February 28 in Biloxi, but a week before the trial 20-year-old Boyette pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiring to prevent a principle from doing his job. He was found guilty of this and was sentenced to a six month army-style programme called ‘Regimented Inmate Discipline’ and then a further five years supervised probation.
Some people believe that Boyette got off too lightly as it was alleged that he was the mastermind behind the fateful acts on that October morning. But others believe that Boyette was just a normal teenager who may have spoken of murderous acts hypothetically but never believed anyone would carry them out.
Luke Woodham and others like him, including Grant Boyette were children who expressed desperate cries for help that were never answered in time, with Woodham’s final plea arriving in the form of murder. Boyette now has a chance to put his life back on track and channel his hatred of bullies in the world in a positive way, but Luke Woodham never will.
