Rachels Story

To your right 13 tears over a columbine drawn

30 minutes before Rachels Death

On 20 April 1999 Richard Castaldo was sat eating lunch with Rachel outside the library by the parking lot. They saw Harris and Klebold approaching. Without warning, the two young men opened fire severing Richard’s spine and shooting Rachel twice in her legs and once in her torso. It was 11.19am.As Richard lay stunned and Rachel attempted to crawl to safety, the shooters began to walk away, only to return seconds later. At that point, Harris reportedly grabbed Rachel by the hair, held her head up and asked her the question “Do you believe in God?”“You know I do,” replied Rachel.“Then go be with Him,” responded Harris before shooting her in the head.One entry in her journal says, “He gave His life for me, I will give my life for Him.”
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Born August 5, 198117 years oldRachel Scott was a vibrant and straight-forward individual. She wasn't afraid to stand up for what she believed in, no matter what. She played the lead in a student-written school play, "The Smoke in the Room" (co-starring friends Nick Baumgart, Lauren Beachem, and others), and was writing a play for her senior year. She also liked photography and was active in the Celebration Christian Fellowship church. She was "made for the camera," according to her father, Darrell, and was an aspiring writer and actress. "There's nothing I can add or take away from what she gave us," her mom, Beth, said. "In those short 17 years, it was complete."She quit smoking at the request of friend Nick Baumgart who later took her to the prom. If she hadn't quit, it's quite possible she would've been at "Smoker's Pit" during lunch instead of in the line of fire. As it was, she was eating lunch on the grass with friend Richard Castaldo when the shooters opened fire on the west entrance near where she was seated on the grass. According to witnesses, she was hit and fell to the ground where, moments later, one of the shooters came down the hill and shot her at point-blank range when she tried to get up. She died from gunshot wounds to the head, chest, arm and leg, and was one of the first victims in what would soon become one of the nation's most deadly mass shootings.One of the shooters, Dylan Klebold, had known Rachel since kindergarten and had even been the sound tech for a talent show she performed in, in 1998. Ironically, when the sound broke down, it was Dylan who saved the performance by hooking up a reserve tape deck. Rachel had been performing a mime dance "Watch the Lamb" which portrayed Simon of Cyrene, who carried Jesus� cross along part of the Via Dolorosa. That same mime dance was later performed behind her coffin during her funeral.Rachel's family didn't know for certain that she was dead until Thursday when her name was on the list of confirmed dead but they all knew in their hearts that the worst was coming as their prayers for her to turn up safe and sound went unanswered during those long hours between the shootings and news of her death. Rachel had always been close with her brother Craig (who had been in the library during the shootings and miraculously survived uninjured despite being next to Isaiah Shoels and Matt Kechter were shot and killed) but had experienced difficulty connecting with her father. That last week before her death, Rachel and her dad had a long and bonding discussion, something that left both of them feeling incredibly happy. For Darrell that moment would later give him comfort when dealing with Rachel's death.Throughout her life Rachel was an incredibly spiritual person who often wrote to God in her diaries about wanting to "reach the unreached". She begged Him for the chance to show others the way, to let her life have some purpose in spreading His word. In 1998 she drew a collage of images that included a rose growing up out of a columbine, with several dark drops spiralling it (you can see this picture on the video Untold Stories Of Columbine). On the morning of the shootings, she doodled a reprise of the picture: a pair of eyes crying 13 teardrops onto that same rose - the same number of victims the shooters would kill during the massacre just hours later.After her death, Rachel's car was turned into a makeshift memorial by her friends where it sat in the parking lot. "In my eyes, she was just one of those kinds of people you know you won't ever meet again," Rachel's friend Lauren Beachem said of her. "She was the kind of person only born once."Rachel was buried at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in the Columbine Memorial Garden in Littleton, Colorado.

Rachel Joy Scott

Rachel Joy Scott. Her middle name said it all. Nearly 2,500 people came to praise her and to bury her in an ivory casket covered with the scrawled names and wishes of her friends and classmates. They arrived early at Trinity Christian Center and stood in line to sign it. While My Heart Will Go On played in the background, hundreds of mourners celebrated the life of a 17-year-old who seemed lighted from within, who reached out to those who didn't quite fit in, who sometimes wondered how to fit in herself.
She was an actor, a clown, a girl who wore sunglasses to the prom and once stuffed 24 marshmallows into her cheeks to win a "Chubby Bunny" contest. Her parents had expected a boy on Aug. 5, 1981, and had picked out the name Craig. That name later went to her brother. In the end, it was Rachel's fervent desire to please other people that put her in the line of fire.
"She occasionally smoked. And I was on her back, all the time," said classmate Nick Baumgart, who took Rachel to the prom last Saturday. "Finally, she promised me she would quit before she went to prom. She did it for me."
Rachel had a passion for theater, for speech and the arts. She had just performed in the Columbine school play, Smoke in the Eyes, and she was writing a play to perform in senior year. Her love of drama was rivaled only by her love of God, her friends said. She thought about graduating early to travel with a Christian drama team and become a missionary or work with troubled youths.
And she loved people. A friend remembered how Rachel enthusiastically offered to trade Halloween costumes with him when they were in fourth grade after he told her he felt humiliated by his homemade Zorro outfit. "Life was just like one big amusement park to Rachel," he said. Rachel spent spring break in Albuquerque with her friend Alisha Basore, shopping for things for the apartment they planned to rent together in August. "She saved me in so many ways," Alisha said. "She taught me the value of life. She taught me to love every second you have."

Welcome To My Rachel Joy Scott Memorial Blog

This is to remember for Rachel Joy Scott