Teen Obsessed With Columbine Found Dead

A Florida teenager who authorities say was obsessed with the Columbine school shooting and may have been planning an attack in Colorado just ahead of the 20th anniversary was found dead Wednesday in an apparent suicide after a nearly 24-hour manhunt.

The body of 18-year-old high schooler Sol Pais was discovered in the mountains outside Denver with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after investigators got a tip from the driver who took her there, the FBI said.

During the manhunt, Denver-area schools closed as a precaution, with classes and extracurricular activities canceled for a half-million students.

Police and the FBI were tipped off about Pais after the Miami Beach high school student made troubling remarks to others about her “infatuation” with the 1999 bloodbath at Columbine High and this weekend’s anniversary of the 13 killings, said Dean Phillips, FBI agent in charge in Denver. He did not elaborate on what she said.

Pais purchased three one-way tickets to Denver on three consecutive days, then flew in on Monday night and went directly to a gun store, where she bought a shotgun, authorities said.