A teenage girl accused of plotting to kill a classmate at Lake Brantley High School wanted to conduct a “blood ritual” to “reunite” with the dead Sandy Hook mass shooter, newly unredacted records show.
Isabelle Valdez, 15, and Lois Lippert, 14, have been charged as adults with attempted first-degree premeditated murder, court records filed Tuesday show. The girls, whom a police report described as best friends, were arrested Jan. 23. Police offered few details at the time except that a knife had been found at the Altamonte Springs school.
Valdez told school and law enforcement officials she sometimes heard voices telling her to hurt others. In the past, one of these supposed voices was Adam Lanza, the mass shooter who in 2012 killed over two dozen people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, according to her arrest report.
She said she no longer heard Lanza’s voice, but other voices told her she could hear his voice again if she killed another student that reminded her of Lanza. Valdez planned to kill him since September and for three months would “stalk” him around campus, taking photos of him without his knowledge, the report said.
On the day prior to Valdez’s arrest, Altamonte Springs police received an anonymous tip that someone later identified as Valdez intended to kill a classmate on the following day. Law enforcement, including the FBI, had already been looking into Valdez as part of an investigation into multiple “swatting calls” recently made to the school and had confiscated her phone, the report said.
An assistant principal called Valdez into her office Jan. 23, where the girl talked about her plan. She then spoke with law enforcement and explained she had planned to kill the classmate after the school’s second period by pulling him into a bathroom and stabbing him. She also said she planned to lay photos of him on his body as part of a “blood ritual” that would show her devotion to Lanza, according to the report.
Valdez told police she had shared her plan with Lippert, who helped test the sharpness of the knife she was planning to use and brought her several items she requested. The report found Lippert “took measures to assist Valdez with gathering items she would need to carry out her plan to kill [the classmate],” including gloves, cigarettes and flowers.
Police found the knife in Valdez’s backpack, along with cigarettes, a lighter, a black camera, a pair of what appeared to be used work gloves and a yellow cloth. Valdez had previously told police she had a yellow towel she would use to muffle the classmate.
Both girls are currently in custody at the Seminole County Jail and had their first court appearances Wednesday afternoon, records show.