Seattle Police say a letter found in a trash container purportedly written by Capitol Hill mass murderer Kyle Huff, and released publicly Tuesday, June 6, has yet to be authenticated. But an expert engaged by police to study the crime says he thinks it’s real. “We expect to know one way or another in the next week or two,” says police spokeswoman Sgt. Deanna Nollette.
Huff may have penned the suicide note to his twin brother and roommate, Kane Huff, prior to killing six teens and young adults and then himself on March 25. (See “There’s Plenty for Everyone!” March 29) No clear motive is known for the second-worst mass murder in Seattle history, but the well-armed Huff was thought to have chosen his victims for their association with rave music and dancing.
The note was poorly written, with numerous misspellings. It was found in a trash bin April 24 at a North Seattle apartment complex about a mile from another complex where the Huff brothers lived. But it appears to have been written on the back of a parking notice handed out at the Huffs’ residence: Slightly legible, and apparently printed on the back side of the paper, are the words: “To All Tenants At Town And Country Apartments … All Parking Rules Must Be Obeyed!” Police released the letter in response to a public-records request by KING-TVand in hopes the public might be able to offer more clues as to its authenticity.
However, the Northeastern University professor and author, James Alan Fox, who heads a panel reviewing the murders for Seattle police, says the note appears indeed to have been written by Kyle Huff. It might also answer some lingering questions about the killings. “It shows you several things,” says Fox. “One, that this was a planned episode — the letter was written before the shooting,” perhaps two days earlier, “that these killings were deliberate and not random, even if he didn’t have these particular individuals in mind. In his view, they — or people like them — were dangerous and had to be stopped. He was a self-appointed revolutionary, to borrow from his letter, and was trying to draw the line on behavior.”
Fox says the handwriting on the letter compares to other documents he has examined with Kyle Huff’s writing and signatures. “I’m not an expert but to my eye they are the same,” he says. “When I first saw this letter, it was not at all surprising he would have written it. Had the letter said something like he was concerned about immigrants, that would have shocked me, knowing what I know about Kyle Huff. But this fits into the evolving picture.” For his final review report that he expects to finish late this month, Fox says, “the letter indeed helps us understand why he channeled his anger as he did.”
The text of the letter suggests the writer was suicidal:
??/23/06
To Kane From Kyle
I hope that you will find this letter after the fact. Don’t let the police or FBI keep you from haveing it, this is my last wish for you to see this. Don’t Kill yourself moron. That’s the last thing I would want to happen. As long as your alive so is part of me, ya know. I hate leaving you by yourself, but this is something I feel I have to do. My life would always feel in complete otherwise. I can’t let them get away with what theyre doing, Kids like me and you are seriously dying over this shit. I hate this world of sex that they are striving to make. This is a revolution brother, The most important thing to happen since man began, to let it die out would be a crime. I will never be able to “cum” with them, I will always see it as hell. The things they say “and do” the’re rapeing us are just to disturbing to me to just ignore and try to live my life with, I know this is a short letter and might sound stupid but It would take a book to properly explain this to you. I don’t have the time for that, or the will. The basic jist of it is that they’re fucking next to us when were really high to make us freak out. And trying to stop the heart by making is palpatate. And they are doing it its just a question of if were willing to be OK with it, And obviously im not. Maybe someday you’ll be willing to help me kill this hippie shit. I know that its going to get worse now, but that’s part of the … Now Kids Now!!! Bye Kane, I Love you.
Though the letter includes “Now Kids Now!!!” — an apparent reference to the “Now” that Huff spray-painted on the sidewalk moments before he opened fire at the home — police are not yet convinced he’s the letter’s author.
“At this point, our position hasn’t changed from when the letter was found,” says Nollette. “We do not know who wrote it. The letter is being evaluated and its authenticity is not established.”
