Holt, who went by Tony, worked at the South Riding Food Lion grocery store after graduation, guidance counselor Deborah Tindale said. But he quit recently so he could pursue a career in computer design and was taking classes at ITT Technical Institute.
David Meninberg, a dean at Broad Run who taught Holt for two years in social studies classes, said he was a sweet, upbeat teenager who worked long hours after school. He would often come to class early, Meninberg said, flop down on a couch in the room and start talking football.
Broad Run High School students create a poster in memory of Kayla Wegner. Yesterday, they talked about ways to handle problems.
(Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)
|
|
"Tony would always do well because he put in the hours, he showed up and people liked him," he said.
It is not clear how long Holt and Wegner had been a couple or how they met. Some neighbors who gathered Monday night outside Wegner's home said they had seen Holt's black pickup truck on several occasions for at least a year.
Others expressed shock that such an incident had occurred in the neighborhood.
"I've been living here four years, and it's quiet like a church mouse," said John Dingus Jr., a landscaper who lives down the street from the Wegner's home.
In a sign of how rarely such events occur in South Riding, the general manager of the South Riding homeowners association issued a statement about the incident yesterday, saying that both teenagers were "known to be upstanding residents of our community" and that the whole neighborhood had been saddened.
At Broad Run, the school day began with a somber meeting for grieving teachers. Over the public-address system, Markley asked that students remember the two during the school's mandated minute of silence -- and warned students against spreading rumors about how the shootings might have happened.
In March, Donald Nicholas Shomaker, also 15, was shot and killed in the basement of a friend's house. Authorities ruled the shooting an accident, and Matthew J. Lathram, 17 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
Alex Gallo, 17, said discussion in her classroom yesterday revolved around the tragedies and ways to help students keep their problems from spinning out of control.
"This is the second time, so there might be a sense that it isn't a fluke," said Gallo, president of the student government. At the same time, she said, the shootings were "not characteristic of our community or our school."
Markley said attendance was high at school yesterday, so students could grieve together.
"They've got to find a way to get through this and understand something that is very hard to understand," he said.
