Randy Stair was a troubled man who found himself obsessed and identifying with Ember McLain, from the Nickelodeon show, Danny Phantom. Ember was an unpopular high school with dreams of becoming a rock star. Stair also had his difficulties in high school, and was working toward his own YouTube career when he entered the grocery store where he worked and killed three coworkers and himself.
On June 7, 2017, 24-year-old Randy Stair went to work at Weis Markets, in Eaton Township, Pennsylvania. He worked the late night shift, and it was almost closing time, around 11pm. He carried a duffel bag with him and wasted no time putting his plan into action. He went to the back of the store and blocked the emergency exit before returning to his duties.
He spent his time cleaning and stocking the shelves until he took a break around 12:10am, when he sent out links to multiple files and videos via his Twitter account. These links, titled “Journal”, “Suicide Tapes”, and “Digital set” detailed his plans for the evening. He returned to the rear of the store where he blocked the remaining exits, then locked the automatic doors at the store entrance.
He went back to his duffel bag and pulled out two pistol grip pump-action shotguns. He was ready.
Stair walked through the store, killing his coworkers, Victoria Brong, 25, Brian Hayes, 47, and Terry Lee Sterling, 63.
When he approached Kristan Newell, who happened to have headphones on, listening to music while labeling items and stocking shelves, he paused. CCTV surveillance footage shows him standing behind her for about five seconds before moving on. But he wasn’t finished yet.
Next, he took aim at glass and other merchandise in the store, even shot at multiple small portable propane tanks, likely hoping they would explode, only to be met with disappointment when they didn’t. His activity didn’t go unnoticed. Once Kristan Newell realized what was happening, she ran to the front of the store, removing the display at the entry doors before breaking the glass door. Outside, she hid behind some bushes and called 911.
Whether Stair noticed her escape or not remains uncertain, however he did not stop his attack. He moved to the deli, where he continued to open fire on items within the store. When he felt his work was complete, he opened his mouth and slid the end of the shotgun inside, just before firing a single round, killing himself instantly.
During his tirade, Stair fired off a total of 59 shots, and though he brought two shotguns with him, only one was used.
At this point, the question is why? Why did he go to work that day, ready to kill? Why did he leave Newell alive? The only answers we have come from his social media.
Randy Stair was born on September 17, 1992. By the time he reached middle school, it was becoming apparent he was suffering from some mental health issues. He had a fascination with death, which was illustrated in stories he wrote and turned in to his English teacher. Those stories almost always involved a deadly incident, killing the characters. It’s interesting that the teachers never commented or questioned him about this obsession.
Things progressed and intensified when he reached high school, growing his obsession with death, and the afterlife. He began to experience and display signs of suicidal ideation, and it is known that he even began contemplating different methods. On a trip to New York with his family, he reported that he considered jumping from a skyscraper. Other methods he considered were asphyxiation and burning.
It is important to note that Stair was strongly opposed to seeking out therapy or visiting with a counselor. He believed that doing so “alters who you are”.
Randy Stair developed a presence on YouTube starting on June 9, 2008. He went by the name Andrew Blaze, and his channel, PioneersProductions, featured short sketches and collaborations with other content creators. Videos included characters such as “Mr. Horse Head” which was little more than a toy horse head on a stick, “Whale”, a stuffed whale toy, and “Froggy”, a plastic toy frog.
Another video, uploaded August 3, 2010, he uploaded a video in which he collaborated with fellow YouTuber “MadeMeBad35. In the video they interacted with a wooden alligator toy. This video became his most viewed video on the channel, garnering around 118,000 views over seven years.
In one of his videos he posted captured video of a contractor at his truck, where someone failed to engage the parking brake. The truck begins to roll away hitting him. Another man runs down the driveway to catch the runaway truck while the one who was hit remains on the ground. This man also forgot to engage his parking brake, and his truck begins rolling down the drive, and it too hits the contractor.
This video caught the attention of YouTuber Ray William Johnson, who included it in one of his videos titled “TOO FAT TO DIE! (2011)”. As of today, this video has more than 10 million views and 58,000 comments.
His first “serious” video was uploaded on April 4, 2012 and was called “Somber”. In the video Stair could be seen walking around and throwing rocks into a body of water as well as carving something on a rock. There was no talking in the video.
His videos went downhill from there. His “finale” series was a series of five videos. The first video was titled “Amnesia Rape”, in which a weight falls on his head, and then he is tied up by Froggy and Whale, who film him being raped. The second video was titled “The Search for Remember”, in which Froggy reveals to Stair that he has the full HD Remember track on a laptop, but runs away with the laptop and drops it into the water. It is then revealed to be a dream.
At the end of the second video, Stair looks online and finds the HD version.
The third video is titled “Extinction”, in which Stair murders Froggy and Whale before putting their bodies into a box.
The fourth video, titled “Resurrection”, depicts Stair being chased by the ghosts of Froggy and Whale when he feels remorse for murdering them. He is saved when Ember (a character from the Nickelodeon show, “Danny Phantom”) uses her powers to stop Froggy and Whale.
The fifth and final video is titled “Absolution”. In this video, Stair puts the toys in a box and burns the box – effectively cremating the toys.
By 2014, he decided to take a different route with his content. According to Stair, he had had numerous unfortunate events happen in his life over the course of the previous year. At the same time, he had another channel by the name “WorthlessToaster”.
In January 2016, he turned to something he loved – Danny Phantom. His new animated series was Ember’s Ghost Squad (EGS), which focused on a fictional organization based on the character Ember McLain from the Nickelodeon animated series Danny Phantom.
It is possible that Randy Stair’s obsession with Ember comes from his ability to relate to her as a character. According to the directors of Danny Phantom, Ember was an unpopular high school girl who dreamed of one day becoming a rock star. One day, a boy asked her out to the movies, but never showed up. She waited until morning before giving up and returning home. In her exhaustion, she didn’t wake up when her house mysteriously caught fire.
Ember died in the flames, and her song “Remember” is believed to be based on the events prior to her death.
Stair had difficulties in high school, and sought to make something of his YouTube career. In his final series for PioneersProductions, he does include the song “Remember”, again, illustrating his obsession with Ember.
In late 2016, his mental health had declined to a point where he created a video called “Westborough High Massacre/Goodbye”. The video featured Stair and another ESG character, Rachael, shooting up a high school – believed to be the one he had attended. But there were other videos that raised concerns. He had multiple tape episodes called “Conspiring a Massacre”. In these he and Rachael conspired to shoot up Westborough High.
Stair had a Mediafire page, and there he uploaded multiple suicide videos and wrote about committing a school shooting. He idolized Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School shooters. Of the two, he claimed that Harris was his idol.
He wrote that “Weis Markets is officially Columbine High School.” He even admitted that he would have gone back to his old high school to commit the shooting, if it had not been demolished the year he graduated.
Also of note, Stair also reported believing that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. In one of his videos, he admitted that he frequently cross-dressed when his family wasn’t home.
His MediaFire page has since been deleted.
On the evening of June 7, 2017, Stair uploaded his final video. “The Westborough High Massacre” was uploaded just hours before he went to work at Weis Markets, and shot and killed three people. In this video he described his hatred towards the people involved with the series through an angry prologue. The video also featured a crudely animated sequence which depicted him and one of his EGS characters murdering students at a fictional high school. The video ended with montages of previous videos, explaining the motives behind the shooting.
In addition to his YouTube presence, he also had nine Twitter accounts, all based on his characters. There he linked to journals and videos uploaded on MediaFire. In some of his videos he expressed remorse for not taking his life sooner – during his teenage years.
In his fifth “Suicide Tape”, he informed viewers that he would be taking two shotguns to his massacre, the second being a backup in case the first one “breaks down on [him] or jams, and [he has] no way of fixing it.”
In the end, Randy Stair did break. He took the lives of three innocent people, and he took his own life.
The shooting did not gain national attention, and was covered mostly by local news outlets. Weis Markets closed down with a spokesperson saying, “We are deeply saddened by the events of this morning. The safety of our associates, our customers, and the surrounding community is our top priority.”
Despite some in the community expressing concerns about the market reopening and not relocating, Weis Markets announced they would be reopening. One man said relocating or closing would have played into Stair’s hands. “The evil man who did this would have wanted them to move and would have wanted people to be scared and not want to go to the store after what he did.”
The original storefront remained intact, with the entire interior gutted and remodeled. The store officially reopened on July 13, 2017.
Still interested in the topic of Mass Shootings? Check out the story of James Holmes, who shot up a theater.
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