Teen convicted of massacre plot
Awaits sentencing in Marshfield case
PLYMOUTH - Tobin Kerns appeared stunned and put his hand to his face yesterday as a juvenile court judge found the former Marshfield High School student guilty of plotting a Columbine-style massacre at the school four years ago.
Authorities say Kerns, 19, and another former student, Joseph Nee, 21, were looking for vengeance against people they felt had slighted them when they plotted to bring explosives to the school, padlock the doors, and kill students and staff on their hit list. Nee is facing a separate trial as an adult in Plymouth Superior Court; a date has not been set. Dan Farley and Joseph Sullivan, two other former students, were granted immunity in exchange for their testimony.
Kerns was found guilty of threatening to use deadly weapons and conspiracy to commit murder. He will be sentenced Nov. 5 and faces up to 40 years in prison, but prosecutors said Kerns will probably face a far shorter term because he was convicted as a youthful offender.
"The police in Marshfield did a good job in this case," Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said in a telephone interview after the proceeding. "A tragedy was avoided due to the good police work that was done."
After Juvenile Court Judge Louis D. Coffin read the verdict aloud and ordered Kerns held without bail, the teenager was quickly led in handcuffs through a nearby side door out of the courtroom. Kerns's father, Ben, who has vigorously defended his son and talked of making a documentary film about the case, appeared shocked and turned to comfort Kerns's mother.
Ben Kerns said in a telephone interview last night that the family was stunned by the verdict. "We're devastated," he said. "I definitely did not think they'd lock him up. He's been out for three years. He has a job. He's doing well."
Tobin Kerns has been working full time at a loan collection agency in Norwell, where he makes arrangements for people to pay off their student loans, said his lawyer, William McElligott.
"Poor Toby has worked so hard to have people not look at him like a monster," said his father. "He's not a monster. He never hurt anybody."
After the verdict was read, Denise Lunn, the mother of Kerns's former girlfriend, Bethany, was also shaken and upset. She loudly denounced the verdict, telling reporters outside the courtroom that it was not fair. "This is disgusting," Lunn said.
Prosecutors have said Kerns and Nee were part of a group of teenagers who called themselves the Natural Born Killers and practiced how to build bombs as they prepared for the attack, which the judge said was originally planned to take place April 20, 2005, the anniversary of the Columbine attack, but was changed to April 15 because of a school vacation.
During his trial last October, Kerns admitted that he wrote a list of items to buy for the attack, including various firearms, propane tanks, and bicycle locks to secure exit doors and prevent anyone from leaving the high school. Kerns also testified that he wrote that list for Nee during one of Nee's "rants" and never believed Nee would carry out the attack.
"I was egging [Nee] along . . . for entertainment purposes," Kerns testified. "I was not assisting him."
Yesterday, Coffin referred to Kerns's testimony and said, "The court doesn't find that explanation to be credible."
During the trial, Farley testified that Nee, who is the son of Thomas J. Nee, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, was the first to mention the plot when he said in December 2003, "Wouldn't it be funny if I shot up Marshfield High school?"
In September 2004, Nee, Farley, and Sullivan went to police and told them Kerns had been planning to attack the school. Police arrested Kerns a month later, when he was 16, and charged him as a youthful offender. Closing arguments in his trial ended in October 2006, but the verdict was delayed until yesterday because prosecutors asked the Supreme Judicial Court to clarify a 2002 state law on threatening to use deadly weapons.
Coffin had said that he believed he should decide the case on the theory that victims of threats must have learned of the planned attack in order for the defendant to be convicted under that law. But the Plymouth district attorney's office objected, saying it was not necessary to have the potential victims informed of the threat in order to win a conviction.
The law - an antiterrorism measure passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks - "was made for situations like this," Cruz said yesterday. 