Kentucky man who killed three classmates in 1997 denied parole, will spend the rest of his life in prison

The Kentucky man who killed three students and injured five others school shooting The Kentucky Parole Board voted Monday.

Michael Cornell, who was 14 at the time of the killing and is now 39, told parole board members last week that he would live with his parents and continue mental health treatment if they agreed to release him. He admitted it he still hears voices like the ones that ordered him to steal a neighbor’s gun and fire it into a crowded Heath High School lobby in 1997. However, Cornell said that with therapy and medication, he has learned to control his behavior.

The board voted 7-0 to deny parole after a closed-door discussion of about 30 minutes. Cornell watched the vote via Zoom from a Kentucky correctional facility. He sat hunched over in a small chair as Kentucky Parole Board Chair Ladeidra Jones asked each member to vote.

Jones then told Carnill that “because of the seriousness of your crime” he would be serving his life sentence in prison.

“On reflection, Mr. Cornell, due to the seriousness of your offense … your offense involved a weapon. Your life was taken, and again seriously, the parole board’s decision today will allow you to serve the remainder of your sentence,” Jones said during the Zoom call, which was partially published by the CBS Louisville affiliate WLKY.

Cornell only said, “Yes, ma’am,” and quickly left.

Several of those injured in the shooting and relatives of those killed also spoke to the parole board last week. Most expressed the wish that Corneal spend the rest of his life in prison. Cornell told the panel that there are days when he thinks he deserves to die for what he did, but other days he thinks he can still do some good in the world.

Jones previously told Carneal that their “number one job is to keep the public safe.” She told him that his inmate file listed his mental health prognosis as “poor” and said he was experiencing “paranoid thoughts with violent visual images.”

Speaking by video conference from the Kentucky State Correctional Institution in La Grange last week, Cornell apologized to his victims, including the entire tight-knit community of Heath, near Paducah. On December 1, 1997, 17-year-old Jessica James, 15-year-old Casey Steger, and 14-year-old Nicole Hadley, who Cornille said were his “very good friends,” were killed.

“I apologize for what I did,” he said. “I know it won’t change anything or make it better, but I regret what I did.”

Corneal was a 14-year-old freshman when he opened fire on a preschool prayer group that met every morning in the lobby. He was given the maximum sentence for a man of his age at the time, which was life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney Daniel Boaz highlighted the long-term consequences for the victims’ families in a letter to the parole board opposing Carneel’s release.

“I felt and witnessed the immediate consequences of Michael Cornell’s actions on December 1, 1997 and have been dealing with the consequences of his actions ever since,” Boaz wrote, adding that the victims’ families have suffered losses “too great to put into words.” and while Corneal’s life sentence “may seem like a harsh sentence, it’s a pittance compared to what these families are going through.”