An Explanation, When There's No Excuse

On the morning of January 4, 2024 – on the day classes resumed after winter break -- a high school boy armed with a shotgun and a handgun opened fire on a group of students inside his school in Perry, Iowa -- killing a student and a school administrator, and wounding several others before killing himself.

The killer’s name was Dylan Butler and he was 17 years old. The student who died was just 11. His name was Ahmir Jolliff. The administrator who died was Daniel Marburger, the school principal.

The school where the incident took place was shared by middle school and high school students in Perry, which is about 40 miles northwest of Des Moines.

There are still a lot of questions about this tragedy and facts continue to emerge with the story. As they almost always do, those facts devolve into a political fight on social media.

One of the facts that appears to be undisputed, according to classmates, was that Butler was continually bullied through much of his short life. One of his friends told reporters, “(Butler) got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment.”

But as the classmate noted later, “Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no.”

In other words, there’s no excuse for what he did.

But maybe there’s an explanation.

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Nearly 50 years ago, on a steamy August morning in 1974, I sat down in my first-row, left-corner desk in a classroom at Bishop DuBourg High School in South St. Louis, nervously preparing for Mr. Jim Leibrecht’s freshman Speech class.

Seated directly behind me was a kid named Paul Borroni.

Our desks were arranged alphabetically, of course. B-A-F was to be followed by B-O-R, because that’s how we did things.

One couldn’t help but notice that Paul was a very large kid.

Not to be uncharitable but he was, in fact, obese. And because of that, the nickname attached to him – years earlier and almost everywhere he went -- was “Bubba.”

I would submit that many of his classmates didn’t even know his real first and last names.

I wouldn’t be surprised if even some of his teachers referred to him simply as “Bubba.”

And it wasn’t hard to imagine the harassment he endured throughout his youth.

The nickname wasn’t a term of endearment - one of those like “Red,” assigned to the auburn-haired, carrot-top kid or “Champ” for the star athlete. No, “Bubba” was a direct, negative comment about Paul’s weight.

A cruel, daily reminder -- over and over -- that he was different, and perfect fodder for school-day ridicule.

Ridicule that didn’t stop at the nickname.

Andrew D’Angelo, who grew up with Paul Borroni and was his pal since kindergarten, says his classmates at St. Joan of Arc grade school would constantly pick on Borroni because of his size.

“They’d tease him so badly sometimes out in the schoolyard he’d stand frozen against the wall of the school and start crying. Then they’d tease him for that. They were relentless at times. They also teased him about not being liked by girls. I remember him liking a girl but always being afraid to talk to them for fear of rejection.”

Which brings us to a late Saturday afternoon in June 1978.

It was the day Paul Borroni’s life changed forever.

And a neighbor girl named Diane Kramer’s life ended.

It was no secret that Paul had a crush on Diane. Just 17-years-old and a year behind Paul in school, she was smart, petite, approachable, pretty and kind. Caring, helpful and loved by her family and friends, Diane was the type of girl it would be hard not to like.

On that warm late Saturday afternoon in June, Diane was home alone in the kitchen preparing dinner for her father – something she had done since the death of her mother a few years earlier. Paul came by, indicating he wanted to date her. Precisely what Diane said in reply is unclear, but it’s known she told him no.

And then Paul Borroni, in a violent, vicious attack, grabbed a paring knife and stabbed his victim 38 times, killing her.

D’Angelo, who knew both Borroni and his victim, often stopped by the Kramer home and this Saturday was no different. But he knew something was wrong when he found the back door of Kramer’s family home wide open, then peered in to see blood on the walls of the kitchen.

“He had been told ‘no’ so many times before,” says D’Angelo, “this probably was the time that put him over the edge.”

Aside from this incident, says D’Angelo, Paul “didn’t have a violent bone in his body. He might have tried to put his arm around her, just wanting to be close to somebody, but nothing sexual or aggressive. She might have pushed his arm away. But I believe all the things that had been welling up inside him for years just made him snap.”

When news of the murder reached us – Paul’s classmates – the next day, the overwhelming consensus was that Andrew D’Angelo's assessment was right.

On Facebook many years later, D’Angelo provided an account of what he thought happened that day.

“(Paul) had a crush on (Diane) for a long time, I think. With the amount of violent rage he unleashed, she probably turned him down or something, and he snapped. I’m far from excusing or forgiving him for murdering one of my dearest childhood friends. Just giving people insight. I think this was a long time coming.”

Sometimes when there’s no excuse, you have to settle for an explanation.

I hadn’t thought about this horrible incident until a few years ago, when Paul Borroni’s name resurfaced in the news.

Finally released from prison for the killing after nearly four decades, Borroni found he couldn’t adapt to the outside world. So, he walked into a suburban St. Louis bar, pretended he had a concealed weapon in his coat, and demanded money from an employee.

He then demanded she call the police. He admitted he wanted to go back to prison to avoid being homeless.

Borroni was sentenced to 15 years in prison on the new charge, but the judge suspended his sentence and put him on five-years’ probation, requiring him to live in a Springfield, Missouri shelter, in an effort to re-acclimate Paul Borroni to society.

This attempt at rehabilitation won’t, of course, bring Diane Kramer, his victim, back to life, nor lessen the pain for her family and friends.

Another neighbor who knew both Borroni and Kramer, Rose Pressley, remembered Diane as “a sweet, honest, likable young girl. I don’t think there was anyone who didn’t like her. Unfortunately, she paid the ultimate price for all the years of inadequacies and disappointments in Paul’s life. I believe it all crashed down on him.

He just snapped that day.”

Just like the effeminate boy, the masculine girl, the skinny kid, the handicapped kid, the acne-faced kid, the crummy athlete kid, the brainiac kid, the kid with braces, the speech impediment kid, the wiry-haired kid, the ugly kid, the geeky kid, the four-eyes kid, the hygiene-challenged kid, the short kid, the kid with the big nose and scores of other kids who were picked on because they were different, Paul Borroni was an easy target for kids who didn’t want to be picked on themselves.

Most of those on the receiving end of such schoolyard bullying slog through it as best they can.

But others – thankfully only a very small minority – can’t take it anymore, and do the unthinkable.

They resort to terrible acts of violence.

When Paul Borroni’s name reappeared in the news after his most recent encounter with the justice system, the news went worldwide – spreading virally via the Internet. I scoured the stories looking for some reference to this aspect of his life – the bullying part.

I didn’t see any, so I thought perhaps it was time to tell the part of story his classmates and the neighborhood kids pretty much knew.

That while there was absolutely no excuse for what he did, there is, perhaps, an explanation.

As always, thanks for reading.