The Purgatory Files

The Roosevelt High Massacre, carried out on September 12th, 2003, was a high profile school shooting planned and commited by Samuel Anderson and Emmett Mauer, 17 year old Seniors at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Jester, Iowa.

Anderson and Mauer had planned their shooting to mirror that of previous school shootings, particularly the Columbine massacre. The event had been planned for later during the year, during an annual Easter assembly, where the boys would plant propane bombs beneath the stage, detonating them during the moment of silence. This was meant to kill, disable and panic as many students and staff as possible and weaken the structure of the building. Survivors would be shot if possible and if not, locked into the burning auditorium to suffocate or burn. Much like their predecessors, however, the bombs failed to detonate properly.

The bombs had been put together hurridly, as the date for the shooting had been pushed up to the begining of the year, in September, due to concerns for the boys mental health together lead Maur's parents to plan to send him to live with his grandparents at the end of the month.The bombs were placed hurriedly the day before a begining of the year assembly, using Anderson's theater tech class period to access the area without suspicion.

One bomb would detonate, frightening the students and staff present and setting fire to the stage, but the other two would fail. The auditorium was evacuated while the fire was put out and Anderson and Mauer would use the scrambling of students and staff to begin shooting, injuring many in the panic. During said panic, Mauer would shoot Cassandra Maus in the back of the head while she attempted to evacuate two students with mobility issues, killing her instantly.

The two would continue shooting carelessly into the crowd, following groups into the Arts hallway before seperating.

Anderson would corner three girls in the photography room, forcing them to choose which of them to shoot, eventually shooting Caroline August fatally and the two other girls nonfatally, leaving them and presuming they would bleed out. Maus would follow a lone Steven Wegner into the choir room, forcing him to beg for his life before shooting him repeatedly in the stomach.

The shooters would meet back up in the cafeteria, where Harold Cullen was ushering students to hide inside the kitchen. Cullen would attempt to reason with the boys, particularly Anderson who was in his theater tech class, while blocking the kitchen doors, allowing a majority of the students inside to escape through the staff doors in the back. He would end up being fatally shot in the chest by Anderson. Entering the kitchen, Anderson would find a a lone straggler who hadn't managed to escape, shooting Calvin McArthur in the back of the head before he could realize he'd been found.

Knowing they were losing time, Anderson and Mauer began searching the nearby CTE buildings for remaining students, looking to up their body counts. They found a small group of students praying in the nursing classroom and shot three of them, leaving one bleeding nonfatally, one disfigured from a shot to the face, and one fatally wounded. Ruby Lopez would end up dying of blood loss in the arms of her friends before medical help could arrive. After leaving the nursing classroom, the shooters would follow the sounds of footsteps leading out to the FFA outside area, leading them to Jeremiah Colt trying to close the door of the FFA equiptment shed. Mauer shot Jeremiah fatally in the chest, pushing aside his body and opening the doors of the shed.

Inside, Stevie Roost and Cecil Tran stood guarding a small group of students with shovels and hoes in hand. Roost and Tran rushed Anderson and Mauer, taking the shooters off guard. Roost knocked Mauer to the ground while Tran cracked his makeshift weapon into the back of Anderson's knees and wrestled away his gun. Tran would shoot Anderson in the left knee before Mauer shot and killed Roost then turned on Tran, shooting him twice in the chest, killing him as well.

Holding onto eachother, Anderson and Mauer walked/limped through the halls of Roosevelt high, stepping over the dead and injured until they made it back to the arts hallway. They moved through the theater room to make their way to the back of the stage in the auditorium. While walking, they found Audrey Sullivan hiding in the wings of the stage and Anderson used the last bullet in his main gun to shoot and kill her.

Mauer placed Anderson down at the back of the stage, where Anderson requested he kill him. Anderson insisted that he was out of bullets and was in pain fron his knee injury, speaking softly and guiding Mauer's hand to point his gun to his forehead. Eventually, not wanting to be found by the police, Mauer took Anderson's baseball cap and fatally shot him in the head. After, Mauer would take a moment to wipe the blood from Anderson's face and sit down beside him before shooting himself in the temple.

Police would find Mauer and Anderson's bodies slumped together at the back of the stage, surrounding the stage before realizing the boys were dead.

Samuel Anderson and Emmett Mauer, 17

Samuel James Anderson and Emmett Mauer were the perpetrators of the 2003 Roosevelt High Massacre.

Samuel Anderson was born June 18th, 1986 to Denise Park and Paul Anderson in Des Moine, Iowa. He had one older sister, Kim Anderson, and 2 half brothers, Benson and Vincent Anderson. His mother left him and his older sister in the care of his father when he was three, not being able to handle Pauls drinking or instablility combined with the stress of having two children. Samuel had a fascination with holding power over others from a young age, often sneaking around his home to find dirt on his siblings to hold over them. Though Samuel would begin to exibhit similar behavioral and phsycological issues as their father, he mantained a good relationship with his siblings. Notably, Samuel would stand between his father and his younger brothers when he drank and came after them. He would also give them small treats and tokens often, buying them cheap candies and letting them watch horror movies and play games on his computer after school. An avid reader when he was younger, he became interested in books about war and mass tragedies in middle school before finding true crime forums and becoming fixated. Beside his interest in true crime and early drinking, Samuel often went through the motions of being part of the crowd, inviting classmates to birthday parties and participating in class parties, but rarely made actual friends. Samuel would occassionally pretend to try and be friends with someone to get information on them, then hold it over them to get what he wanted.

In seventh grade, after being expelled from his junior high for bringing vodka on campus multiple times and staff threatened to launch an investigation into his family situation, Samuel's father moved his family to Jester, Iowa. Samuel would be enrolled in Hayes Middle School, where he would meet Emmett.

Emmett Mauer was born December 3rd, 1987 to Janet and Harris Mauer in Jester, Iowa. He had no siblings. Emmett had a good and stable relationship with his parents and was a loud and sometimes overly friendly child up until the end of fifth grade. Worried, his parents put him into therapy to figure out that was wrong. during the summer between fifth and sixth grade, Emmett would be diagnosed with Depression and Autism. The therapist would also note to Emmett's parents that, while he doesn't know and can't tell the details, there was something weighing heavily on Emmett's mind and that the weight of keeping the secret was negatively effecting his self esteem and mental state. Going into middle school, Emmett further isolated himself from his peers, prefering to use his parents computer to go online and try to find connections on video game and other pop culture forums. Emmett became fascinated with technology and spent much of his time in his room, attempting to code his own video games and editing levels of games he already enjoyed. Emmett would try to be more social on occassion when asked to by his therapist or parents, but had a hard time finding connections with people his age, especially boys who would bully him for his quiet presence and flat affect. Rumours would be spread about Emmett's sexuality in middle school, starting from his reluctance to change in front of or look at other boys before and after gym.

During his seventh grade year, Emmett would meet incoming student Samuel and become enamoured with him. Sam was strong willed, sharp tounged and occasionally violent to get his way, something Emmett had no experience with outside of bullying. Emmett spent three weeks watching Samuel from afar before approaching him, becoming almost worryingly fast friends. While Samuel would have other, less close friends, Emmett was almost completely physically isolated from everyone but Samuel and his therapist. When asked by administration why they didn't try to make more friends at school, Emmett would say "I already have the best one, why do I need another?" and Samuel would express his distate for a majority of their peers in a variety of vulgar ways before claiming "Em's enough."

Samuel would introduce Emmett to true crime websites and forums and the boys would become mutually obsessed with the Columbine shooting, starting journals and attempting to dress more like Klebold and Harris. Emmett would begin growing out his hair and bleaching it blond. Samuel would focus on the massacre itself and the media coverage and 'legacy' of the shooters, while Emmett was more interested in the shooters themselves and theories on what why they did what they did and their relationship to one another.

"...See you in hell, Emmy."

"Yeah, something like that."

Samuel's Case Files Emmett's Case Files

Roosevelt High School Massacre

September 12, 2003

Samuel Anderson and Emmett Mauer, 17

Cassandra Maus, 16

Caroline August, 15

Steven Wegner, 15

Harold Cullen, 52

Calvin McArthur, 17

Ruby Lopez, 16

Jeremiah Colt, 18

Stevie Roost, 16

Cecil Tran, 17

Audrey Sullivan, 37