At least 4 school shooters sentenced to death since 1940, but none have yet been executed

Following reports that prosecutors sought the death penalty for alleged murderer Luigi Mangione, accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, social media posts online lamented that Maglione’s punishment would be more severe than every “school shooter.”

In April 2025, posts on Instagram (archived), TikTok (archived), and Threads (archived) alleged that no school shooters had ever received the death penalty. 

While some commenters pointed out that most perpetrators of what would be considered “school shootings” are minors and therefore not eligible for a death sentence, the popular posts implied there was a disparity in punishment for the murder of one wealthy man versus the murders of multiple children. 

Though it’s proportionally rare for a school shooter to be sentenced to death, it has indeed happened, most recently in 1993. Therefore, we have rated the claim false. 

However, no perpetrator has been sentenced to death since 1993, despite there being at least 23 fatal mass school shootings since then. Of those 23 incidents, 16 ended with the death of the assailants either by suicide or law enforcement. 

Our research turned up at least four instances of school shooting perpetrators being sentenced to death, with two of the four still sitting on death row and the other two having their sentences commuted to life in prison. 

The definition of “school shooter” can vary. For the purposes of this fact check, we have defined it as a gunman who intentionally targeted students and staff at a school. Further, we’ve excluded crimes such as a robbery that resulted in a fatal shooting on the grounds of a school. For example, two people were executed after being sentenced to death for fatal shootings that took place on school grounds but would not be considered “school shootings” in the sense discussed in the claim. 

The earliest school shooting-related death sentence stemmed from the 1940 murder of a teenage girl by her father, Joseph Moshell, who showed up at his daughter’s boarding school and shot her. 

The school was St. Mary’s-in-the-Field, “an Episcopal school conducted for girls from 12 to 20 years old having unpleasant home life or other problems,” according to a news item that appeared in The New York Times on July 5, 1940.

(The Ogdensburg Journal, March 7, 1941)

On March 7, 1941, The Ogdensburg Journal reported, “Judge Frank H. Coyne said today he would impose a mandatory death sentence next Wednesday upon Joseph Moshell, a 47-year-old World War veteran convicted of slaying his 16-year-old daughter, Melbla.” 

However, the sentence was later commuted to life in prison in 1942 by New York Gov. Herbert Lehman, according to the official papers from Lehman’s term available to view in the New York State digital library.

(New York Gov. Herbert Lehman)

On Nov. 12, 1966, Robert Benjamin Smith entered the Rose-Mar College of Beauty in Mesa, Arizona and killed three students as well as a customer and her young child. According to a Time magazine article from Nov. 18, 1966, the perpetrator “began to concoct his own nightmarish schemes for multiple murder” after a deadly mass shooting at the University of Texas earlier that year.

A Time magazine article from Nov. 3, 1967, stated, “Despite a plea of insanity, accused mass murderer Robert Benjamin Smith, 19, was found guilty and now faces the gas chamber.” 

However, in 1971, the Arizona Supreme Court reversed and remanded the decision, and eventually Smith’s sentence was commuted to consecutive life sentences in prison. According to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry, Smith died in prison on April 21, 2024.

James William Wilson Jr., the perpetrator of a 1988 school shooting that left two dead and several injured in Greenwood, South Carolina, was sentenced to death in 1989, according to Wilson’s inmate report. 

In 2006, WIS News 10 in Columbia, South Carolina, reported, “Wilson’s lawyers contend South Carolina will be the first state in the nation to execute someone whose mental illness is so severe, a judge ruled he could not conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.” Wilson remains on death row.

Finally, Eric Huston, the perpetrator of the 1992 Lindhurst High School shooting in Olivehurst, California, was sentenced to death in 1993. The 1992 shooting was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, leaving four dead and 10 injured, until the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

A report from The Sacramento Bee on Sept. 21, 1993, said, “Speaking slowing [sic] and somberly, a judge told convicted schoolroom killer Eric Huston, ‘I will pray for you,’ as he sentenced him to death on Monday.” 

(The Sacramento Bee, Sept. 21, 1993)

In 2012, the California Supreme Court upheld the decision on appeal. According to Sacramento’s FOX 40, Houston was scheduled for execution in 2022 but was “delayed because of appeals” and then “Governor Gavin Newsom placed an official halt on capital punishment in June 2023.”

According to a California Incarcerated Records and Information search, Houston is at Pelican Bay State Prison in California “serving a death sentence and is, therefore, not eligible for parole consideration.” 

For all these reasons, the claim that a school shooter has never been sentenced to death is false. 

Sources