Trapped with a killer for 77 minutes: Devastating new book gives definitive bullet-by-bullet account of one of America's deadliest school shootings
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Another day in America, another school shooting. This week, it is Madison, Wisconsin's turn to mourn and wonder why. A student and a teacher were killed and six others wounded on Monday when a 15-year-old student, a girl, opened fire inside Abundant Life Christian School.
![[Police wait outside the classrooms while, on the other side of the door, the killer is terrorizing two classes full of fourth grade students.]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/02/20/92715531-14149039-image-a-11_1733172723533.jpg)
Natalie Rupnow, the shooter, lies dead, killed by an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. Her motives are, as of yet, unknown. Inevitably, this tragedy evokes memories of the very worst shootings, including the notorious 2022 massacre that claimed the lives of 19 elementary school students and two teachers, overwhelming the small border town of Uvalde, Texas.
![[Police officers convinced themselves they were dealing with a gunman who was barricaded into a room by himself. They were catastrophically wrong.]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/02/20/92715521-14149039-image-a-12_1733172751666.jpg)
It was nearly 11:30am on Tuesday, May 24 when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos crashed his pickup truck into a ditch, climbed out and headed on foot for Robb Elementary School. The minutes that followed shook America, not just because of the savagery unleashed. But because of the bewildering inaction of officers, agents and police commanders who spent more than an hour waiting while, just a few feet away, Ramos was murdering with impunity.
![[Teacher Irma Garcia (pictured) in room 112 is shot 11 times and falls forwards with seven children gathered behind her, holding out her arms as if to protect them.]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/02/15/92701173-14149039-image-a-6_1733154818291.jpg)
Nineteen children and two teachers would eventually lie dead. Many more were injured. Glued to the police scanner, journalists at the local newspaper monitored the unfolding disaster from the beginning. To them, it was the most personal of stories; by the end of it, a staff reporter's daughter, Lexi Rubio, was among the victims.
![[In room 109, teacher Elsa Avila (pictured) lies struggling. A bullet from rooms 111 or 112 has passed through the wall and struck her in the right side of the chest, lodging in her colon.]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/02/20/92715515-14149039-image-a-14_1733172806624.jpg)
