Not until she shot 20-year-old Philip Andrew did Laurie Dann pick on somebody her own size. Even then, she was the one with the gun.
Before that, her victims were six small children, five of whom Dann shot in their 2d-grade classroom. The sixth, she shot in a bathroom.
Then she ran away, first from the school and then, with a final gunshot, from her troubled self.
She left, wounded, six survivors, all of them destined to relive the Friday-morning nightmare Dann visited upon Winnetka.
She left, shocked, almost 300 of her victims` schoolmates at Hubbard Woods Elementary School, as well as their families, friends and neighbors.
And she left, dead, one 8-year-old boy, whose parents loved him dearly.
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Hours after Dann killed Nicholas Brent Corwin, his mother wrote three paragraphs about him celebrating the qualities that, when she and her husband would contemplate them, used to make them ”weep with joy.”
Linda Corwin, a school board member for the district that oversees Hubbard Woods, wrote of her son:
”A gifted athlete, a gifted artist, a gifted student; a child full of love and humor . . . He loved people; he loved organizing games; he played basketball, hockey, baseball, soccer: He drew pictures that showed a keen eye for detail and a vivid imagination; a sweet and loving child who had concern for others.”
Even other parents and students decribed Nick as a standout child in a school of standout children.
Chris Wachs, a 6th-grader at Washburne Junior High, said he had played soccer against Nick`s team last Sunday. ”He was the smallest kid on the field, and he was one of the best,” said Wachs, 12.
”He was a very tough competitor in his athletic games,” Linda Corwin wrote, ”but a sensitive and kind child off the field or court. He brightened our lives with such a brilliant light that we cannot believe he`s gone.”
Services for Nicholas Corwin, who also is survived by his father, Joel, a lawyer, and two brothers, 5-year-old Johnny and 11-year-old Michael, are to be held at 10 a.m. Monday at Temple Jeremiah in Northfield. Hubbard Woods officials said the school won`t open till 1 p.m. Monday so people may attend the funeral.
At 2:30 p.m. at the school, children, teachers and administrators will hold another memorial service for Nick.
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Theft is not what she will be remembered for, but Laurie Dann almost robbed another Winnetka family of its middle child.
One of three sisters, Lindsay Clark Fisher, 8, was brought Friday to Evanston Hospital close to death.
A bullet had entered her arm and ricocheted inside her, puncturing her right lung, her liver and her stomach. Empty of blood, her heart was still beating. Doctors immediately opened her chest and put a tube in her left atrium. Through it, they pumped new blood directly into her heart.
Lindsay was on the operating table for two hours. Twice Saturday morning, she was back in the operating room-to stop ongoing bleeding in her diaphragm area and to clear out her lungs.
”She`s in critical condition, and it`s still a touch-and-go situation,” Dr. Joseph Hageman said at 4 p.m. ”We are still far away from being out of the woods.”
”She`s a tough little one, a little fighter,” said Chris Pates, who works for George Fisher and drove the 35-year-old owner of a Chicago business to the hospital after he learned his daughter had been shot. Pates said Lindsay is a star soccer player.
While her father and her mother, Karen, stayed with her at the hospital, Lindsay`s older and younger sisters-Becky, 5, and Kelly, 10-were with an uncle, Pates said.
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Classmates of the victims and their parents returned to the school Saturday for an extraordinary session called to deal with an extraordinary tragedy.
”We wanted to get them back in school, let them know this is a safe place,” said District 36 Supt. Donald Monroe. He estimated that between 200 and 250 of the school`s 300 pupils were there, most with their parents.
After an overview of available counseling services, the pupils and parents met with social workers in small groups in individual classrooms.
”We talked about being hopeful-what hope meant and the need for hope,”
said Walter Rest, director of Family Service of Winnetka-Northfield.
But the children did most of the talking, he said. ”Some kids said they had nightmares. They wanted to know, Is that normal?”
”I know it`s over now,” said Scott Stone, a 6th-grader at Washburne who learned that Hubbard Woods pupils had been shot before he learned that his little brother, Adam, was okay. ”But it`s always going to haunt me. The thing about this is you know these people; you talked to them.”
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The youngest of them, Robert Trossman, 6, lives in a subdivision with his parents and his older sister. In his driveway is a pint-sized basketball hoop where, neighbors said, he and his sister play.
”He`s a nice, cute kid who would ride his bike around all the time and wave when you go by,” said neighbor David Mulmat, 25. Robert was in serious condition Saturday night at Evanston Hospital, with wounds to the chest and stomach.
Peter Munro, 8, tags along just about every time his brother, Matt, a high schooler, goes outside to shoot baskets. ”He is full of wonder, one of those children who is happy all the time,” said Carol Adorjan, a neighbor whose window Peter would knock on, begging for cookies.
Peter was said to be proud of his blond crewcut, even though other children razz him about it. Saturday evening, a spokeswoman at Highland Park Hospital said Peter, shot in the chest, was in serious but stable condition, and improving.
Philip Andrew also was at Highland Park Hospital, reported in serious but stable condition.
The ”best friend” of 7-year-old Kathryn Ann Miller, 9-year-old Sara Greenberger, said Kathryn ”likes to ride her bike a lot, likes to draw and she laughs all the time.”
”She plays on the Little Trevians soccer team, and she likes her cats. She`s got two of them,” Sara said. A neighbor said Kathryn lives with her mother, Jan, and a 9-year-old brother, John. Saturday night, she was reported in serious condition at Evanston Hospital with wounds to the wrist and chest. Summer and winter, Mark Tebourek, 8, plays hockey with his older brother Kevin, said a neighbor, and schoolmates said he is known for his hockey skills.
Another neighbor, Inger Friberg, called Mark ”bright and polite” and
”a wonderful little child.” Mark was also at Evanston Hospital, reported in serious condition with a wound to the neck; he had been transferred out of intensive care to the pediatric ward.
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The children wanted to know a lot of different things during the meeting at Hubbard Woods School Saturday, said Torie Ross, a 5th-grader.
When it came her turn, she said, she asked a question about Laurie Dann:
”I wanted to know why we were praying for her.”