A teenager who was shot in the face during the Kentucky high school shooting that left two dead is in a stable condition and speaking to his family.
Gage Smock, 15, of Gilbertsville, was seriously injured and his girlfriend Bailey Holt was killed when a 15-year-old went on a shooting rampage at Marshall County High School on Tuesday.
Preston Ryan Cope, 15, also died in the attack, while 18 students were injured. Officials say the shooter, who has not yet been named, will be tried as an adult on charges of murder and assault.
On Thursday, Smock’s father Gary Wayne Smock, 35, broke down in tears as he told USA Today his son was still in hospital after the critical gunshot wound to the head.
Gage Smock, 15, (right) of Gilbertsville, was seriously injured and his girlfriend Bailey Holt (left) was killed when a 15-year-old went on a shooting rampage at Marshall County High School on Tuesday
The family have shared photographs of their son as he recovers in hospital. In one, he holds up a sign that reads: ‘#Marshall Strong’
‘We’re doing as well as can be expected,’ he said, adding that doctors did not yet know when Gage could be released. The teen underwent surgery on Thursday and remains in hospital in a stable condition.
Gary, and his wife Larissa Smock, 34, have been at their son’s bedside in Nashville since the shooting.
The family have shared photographs of their son as he recovers in hospital. In one, he holds up a sign that reads: ‘#Marshall Strong.’
The sentiment was echoed across town, including at Calvary Baptist Church in Grand Rivers, where the sign read ‘MARSHALL STRONG’.
A vigil was held Thursdays to honor the victims and hundreds gathered amid flickering candles after nightfall.
Nearly 300 people, many with faces visibly etched with pain, thronged a park as firefighters raised a large American flag in the crisp night air.
Many teens, cupping candles in their palms, hugged and looked on somberly. One girl’s candle shook in her hands as she sobbed, and others cried when another girl sang ‘Amazing Grace.’
‘It always happens somewhere else, you know, but this week it was our community,’ said Misti Drew, an organizer of the vigil. With faces aglow from the candles, participants lofted banners and some wore T-shirts embossed with the words, ‘Marshall Strong.’
Bailey Holt (left), 15, was one of two students who suffered fatal gunshot wounds in Tuesday’s shooting rampage at a Kentucky high school. Preston Cope (right), also 15, was rushed to hospital but died of a gunshot wound to the head
Police were seen leading a teen, believed to be the 15-year-old shooter, away in handcuffs after he opened fire on classmates at Marshall County High School in Kentucky on Tuesday morning. The shooter (second right) still has not been identified
Earlier, Vicki Jo Reed painted a ‘Marshall Strong’ sign on a storefront, and reflected on her grandson’s close call.
‘This is one of the hardest things for me to ever have to paint,’ she said. ‘Had a grandson that was in the commons area through the whole thing, and he, like all the other kids, is not handling it very good.’
Reed said her grandson is also 15, like the shooting suspect and their two slain classmates, and is haunted by the horror he saw.
‘He wakes up to the gunshots every morning,’ Reed said.
‘It’s small town and they’re all coming together for us,’ said Smock, who said he is grateful for the support.
Gage also lost his girlfriend Bailey Holt, in the shooting.
‘She called me and all I could hear was voices, chaos in the background,’ her mother Secret Holt told WKRN on Wednesday.
‘She couldn’t say anything and I tried to call her name over and over and over and she never responded,’ he mother added.
Mrs Holt soon learned that there had been a shooting at her eldest daughter’s school, Marshall County High, so she ran to where the kids were being bused to safety.
Secret and Jason Holt lost their 15-year-old daughter Bailey in Tuesday’s shooting at Marshall County High School in Kentucky
She says she knew something was wrong when she didn’t see the 15-year-old on any of the buses.
‘We waited and waited for her to get off the buses and she never did,’ Mrs Holt said. ‘The principal at North Marshal came and got me, and took us outside and we got in a cop car and they took us to the fire department and told us what had happened.’
Bailey was one of two students killed by the as-yet-unnamed shooter, who is in police custody.
Classmate Preston Cope, also 15, died after being shot in the head.
Bailey’s boyfriend was among the 14 others shot in the shooting, but he is expected to make a recovery.
Bailey’s father Jason remembers dropping his daughter off at school the morning she was shot.
Bailey’s proud parents described her as ‘a perfect angel’ who wanted to be a nurse
‘I took her to school and gave her a kiss and told her I love and she got out of the car,’ he said.
Bailey’s parents described her to the Today show as ‘the best kid ever’.
‘She was an angel here on earth,’ her dad said. ‘She was a perfect angel.’
‘She loved everyone. She never had a harsh word to say about anything or anyone,’ her mother said.
The sophomore love music, art and helping others, her family said.
‘Even though she was 15, she had already decided her career was going to be a labor and delivery nurse,’ Mrs Holt said. ‘She helped others … she was just so kind-hearted and the most amazing kid anybody could ever ask for. Her smile could light up the room.’
People attend a vigil for the victims of a fatal shooting at Marshall County High School on Thursday
What’s so tragic about her death is that Bailey would have been a friend to the killer, her mother said.
‘Whatever that kid had going through his mind, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But if he needed a friend, I know she would’ve been a friend to him and talked to him about anything he needed, because that’s just the kind of person she was.’
No motive for the shooting has been released, but the step-sister of the shooter took to Facebook, claiming he was ‘not a monster’ and that he doesn’t deserve the death penalty. She added that he was bullied and his parents had recently divorced.
Mrs Holt says she’s praying for the victims, as well as the shooter and his family.
Students and community members hold hands in prayer before classes at Paducah Tilghman High School in Paducah on Wednesday for the victims of the nearby shooting
Students are seen above attending the prayer vigil at Life in Christ Church in Marion
‘I don’t know if I can go to court and see him. I just don’t know if I can, but I want him to pay for everything he’s done,’ she said. ‘I also want to pray for him, too, because I know he’s probably having a hard time too, but he took our baby. He still took my baby from me.’
The suspect is being held at a regional juvenile jail in Paducah – about a half-hour away from the high school.
Thursday’s closed-door hearing for the suspect began a journey through the criminal justice system that is slightly more complicated than it would be if the suspect were an adult charged with the same crimes.
After an initial series of hearings in juvenile court, which is closed to the public and the records sealed under Kentucky law, the case will be presented to a grand jury that next meets on Feb. 13.
The school was placed in lock down and the entrances to the school were blocked off by first responders
Terrified students were later reunited with their parents following the deadly shooting
If the grand jury returns an indictment, the case will move to circuit court, at which point the prosecution would proceed like an ordinary criminal trial. But the boy will have some protections: The law requires that he remain at a juvenile jail, not in the general population of a county facility. And if he’s found guilty at trial, he will not face the state’s most severe sentences.
Kentucky juries can typically recommend a range of sentences, up to death, for adults convicted of murder.
But the U.S. Supreme Court has barred states from sentencing juveniles to death or to life without parole, finding that children should be treated differently because their still-developing brains leave young people prone to poor judgment.
And Kentucky has been through this before, when a teenager convicted in a school shooting that drew national attention more than two decades ago was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
Michael Carneal was 14 in 1997 when he killed three students and injured five at Heath High School in Paducah, not far from Marshall County. Convicted and sentenced in 2001, he’s now 34 and eligible for parole in four years, according to state records.