Gabrielle Giffords shooting: Frightening, twisted shrine in Arizona killer Jared Lee Loughner's yard
BY Matthew Lysiak In Tucson and Lukas I. Alpert
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Monday, January 10th 2011, 4:00 AM
DAILY NEWS EXCLUSIVEMiniature altar with human skull replica in backyard tent at Jared Lee Loughner's home.
DAILY NEWS EXCLUSIVETent containing shrine in Jared Lee Loughner's Tucson backyard. Related NewsArticles
A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others.
Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner's home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges.
A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal.
Experts on Sunday said the elements are featured in the ceremonies of a number of occult groups.
Investigators have focused on Loughner's online anti-government ramblings as the chief motivation for the shooting Saturday of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
The discovery of the shrine raises the possibility that Loughner, 22, may have been driven by other forces. Students and faculty at Pima Community College, which he attended until his suspension last summer, said Loughner was clearly at odds with the world.
"He was one of the last kids tocome in, and he sat down and almost immediately started laughing to himself in a way that was just kind of creepy," a classmate, Alex Kotonias, 20, told USA Today.
"As soon as the teacher started going over the syllabus, he had this outburst out of nowhere, didn't even raise his hand, and started asking the teacher some sort of weird questions about whether he believed in mind control."
Inside Jared Lee Loughner's home (DAILY NEWS EXCLUSIVE).
Adjunct Prof. Ben McGahee, 28, worried about violence. "I remember going home and thinking to myself, 'Is he going to bring a weapon to class?'" he told USA Today.
Lynda Sorenson, 52, who was in McGahee's basic algebra class with Loughner, expressed similar fears in emails to friends, The Washington Post reports.
On June 14, she wrote: "We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, 'Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird.' I sit by the door with my purse handy."
In September, college officials sent campus police officers to Loughner's home, where he lives with his parents, with a letter informing him he could not return without a mental health professional's written assurance that hispresence at college would "notpresent a danger to himself or others."
"It was obvious to everyone that Jared wasn't a normal guy,"said neighbor Anthony Woods, 19.
Loughner worked as a volunteer at the Pima Animal Care Center, where he walked dogs and cleaned cages. "He loved animals and was a good worker," said another volunteer.
Loughner had once tried to join the military but was deemed unsuitable, officials said.
mlysiak@nydailynews.com
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Palins' fault.
