Suspect was a loner, say classmates

In the waning days of Payton Gendron’s COVID-altered senior year at Susquehanna Valley High School, he logged on to a virtual learning program in economics class that asked: “What do you plan to do when you retire?” “Murder-suicide,” Gendron said. Despite his protests that it was all a joke, the bespectacled 17-yearold who had long been viewed by classmates as a loner with good grades was questioned by state police over the possible threat and then arrested and to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation under a state mental health law.

But a day and a half later, he was released. And two weeks after that, he was able to participate in graduation festivities, including riding in the senior parade. That account of Gendron’s brush with the law last spring is now seen as a missed opportunity to uncover a sinister side of Gendron that he kept hidden from those around him.

Neighbours and classmates in this mostly white community of 5,000 near the New York-Pennsylvania line say they saw no sign of the kind of racist rhetoric seen in a 180-page online diatribe, purportedly written by Gendron.

Classmates described Gendron as a quiet, studious boy who got high marks but seemed out of place in recent years, turning to online streaming games, a fascination with guns and ways to grab attention from his peers.