DEKALB, Ill. – Steven Kazmierczak, at 27, looked like an average student – except his arms were covered with disturbing images, including a doll from the horror movie “Saw.”
Professors and students knew him as a bright, helpful scholar, but his past included a stint in a mental health center.
Many saw him as happy and stable, though he had developed a recent interest in guns and was involved in a troubled – possibly abusive – on-again, off-again relationship.
What people initially told police about the Northern Illinois University shooter didn't add up, and investigators are searching for answers to what triggered Thursday's bloody attack, in which five students were killed and 16 were injured before Kazmierczak committed suicide.
While searching for a motive, authorities questioned family and friends and tried to determine whether he had recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend.
One person who knew the couple, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the couple's relationship was on-again, off-again and “really rocky.” Kazmierczak was controlling, she said. “He was abusive, had a temper. He didn't hit her; he would push her around.”
Kazmierczak also had a history of mental illness and had become erratic in the past two weeks after he stopped taking his medication, said university Police Chief Donald Grady.
A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak had been placed there after high school by his parents. He used to cut himself and had resisted taking his medications, she said.
Kazmierczak spent more than a year at the Thresholds-Mary Hill House in the late 1990s, former house manager Louise Gbadamashi said. His parents sent him to the facility because he was “unruly” at home, she said.
Gbadamashi couldn't remember instances of him being violent, she said. “He never wanted to identify with being mentally ill,” she said. “That was part of the problem.”
Jason Dunavan, a tattoo artist in Champaign, said he spent hours as recently as last month creating tattoos for Kazmierczak. His work included an image of the macabre doll from the horror movie “Saw” riding a tricycle through a pool of blood with images of several bleeding cuts in the background.
Police went through the belongings he left at a DeKalb motel in search of clues.
Kazmierczak paid cash for his room three days before the shootings, the hotel manager said. Items later found in his room included empty cartons of cigarettes and discarded containers of energy drinks and cold medicine. The refrigerator was stocked with more energy drinks.
“It's scary,” said Jay Patel, manager at the Travelodge where Kazmierczak was last seen before the attack.
Authorities found a duffel bag, with the zippers glued shut, that Kazmierczak had left in the room. It was opened Friday by the DeKalb police bomb squad. The Chicago Tribune reported that ammunition was found inside, citing law enforcement sources.
Kazmierczak also left behind a laptop computer, which was seized by investigators, Patel said yesterday.
The discoveries added to the puzzles surrounding Kazmierczak, a graduate student who had once studied at Northern Illinois University but transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
He also had a short-lived stint as a prison guard that ended abruptly when he didn't show up for work. He was in the Army for about six months in 2001-02, but he told a friend he'd gotten a psychological discharge.
Aaron Funsfinn, a friend who knew Kazmierczak at NIU, said Kazmierczak had become interested in guns in recent years, but Funsfinn said he wasn't alarmed by his friend's outspoken support for gun ownership.
“He was very rational and reasoned,” said Funsfinn, 23.
Others who knew him also were baffled by the attacks, in which Kazmierczak stepped from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on a geology class.
Kazmierczak's godfather, Richard Grafer, yesterday said his godson told him he'd broken up with a girlfriend before Christmas. “He wasn't distraught,” Grafer said.
“Then he said, 'We'll play chess and we'll talk.' And I said, 'Yeah, I'd love it,' ” Grafer said. The conversation took place Tuesday, Grafer said, and Kazmierczak told his godfather he'd call him again yesterday. Grafer said he knew nothing about Kazmierczak being on or off medication.
NIU President John Peters said Kazmierczak compiled “a very good academic record, no record of trouble” at the 25,000-student campus in DeKalb.
Kazmierczak grew up in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village. He was a B student at Elk Grove High School, where a school district spokeswoman said he was active in band and took Japanese before graduating in 1998. He was also in the chess club.
No one answered the door yesterday at the Urbana home of Kazmierczak's sister, Susan. But sobs could be heard through the door of the Urbana home, where a statement was posted. It read, in part:
“Our heartfelt prayers and deepest sympathies are extended to the families, victims . . . We are both shocked and saddened. . . . We are grieving his loss as well as the loss of life resulting in his actions.”
Officials at NIU said classes will resume on Feb. 25. Cole Hall – where the shootings happened – will remained closed the rest of the semester.
Seven people remained hospitalized yesterday after the attack, with three in serious condition, one of them upgraded from critical. The other four are in fair condition.
