Missouri school shooter Drew Grant killed in car crash 21 years after attack

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A Missouri man, who, along with an accomplice, shot and killed four students and a teacher at an Arkansas middle school 21 years ago, died in a car crash last Saturday, KAIT reports.

Drew Grant, 33, of Jackson, was allegedly driving a 2017 Honda CRV down a highway around 9 p.m. when another driver — Daniel Petty, 59, of Essex, Mo. — crossed a turn lane in a 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe and hit Grant head-on. Both drivers were killed and three others were injured in the crash.

Police are working under the notion that Grant and Andrew Golden — Grant's alias at the time of the school shooting before he legally changed it — are "one in the same," said Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler.

In 1998, Grant, who was then 11 years old, and Mitchell Johnson, who was 13, set off a fire alarm at Westside Middle School and shot people as they fled the building. Two 12-year-olds, two 11-year-olds and a teacher, identified as Shannon Wright, were killed, while 10 other people were injured. That year, the two juveniles were responsible for the second-deadliest shooting in U.S. history, just behind the 1966 University of Texas shooting, according to CBS News.

Both Grant and Johnson were tried as juveniles and held in custody until they turned 21. Johnson was released in 2005, and Grant was released two years later.

In 2008, Grant, who had changed his name from Golden, applied for a concealed carry handgun permit but was denied after Arkansas State Police discovered that his fingerprints matched the ones he had given in 1998.

Following news of the Missouri man's death, Shannon Wright's husband, Mitch, issued a statement on behalf of his family.

"The news of Andrew Golden's death today fills our family with mixed emotions as I’m sure it does with the other families and students of the Westside shooting," the statement read, according to KAIT. "Mostly sadness. Sadness for his wife and son, sadness that they too will feel the loss that we have felt. To his family, we are so sorry for your loss. We are praying that his wife and child will make a full recovery."

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