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Around 7am on Saturday, March 25th, a man entered a house outside Seattle, Washington filled with 20 young "ravers" and opened fire. Six people have been confirmed dead, including four young men and two young women. One other person was critically injured before the shooter killed himself when he was confronted by police on the steps outside. (KOMO-TV article on the murders) (KIRO-7's Video)
The Seattle Weekly is reporting the name of the shooter to be Aaron Kyle Huff. Huff had been invited to the house party by some of the people he met at the "better off undead" rave. According to the article, the man presumed to have killed four young men and two women was a 28-year-old former Montana man. He has no apparent criminal record but a penchant for guns and hunting, police and other sources say. His twin brother, Kane Huff, was taken into custody in connection with the case but has now been arrested. 
The night before the shooting, the houseguests and the shooter attended an "undead" rave at the Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle. (See online party posting here) The event was attended mostly by ravers known as "candy kids," who normally wear bright colors, but who dressed to fit the zombie theme of the party held on Friday night. It was disturbing to see how they publicized the rave with the line "Get ready to eat some brains. On the left, I've posted the photo that went along with the party details.The police have not released names of the victims or the shooter but the online Seattle Ravers community has. After the shootings, the young people scrambled to check amongst themselves and published a "roll call" where the members could post if they were okay or had any information on who was killed. (*) This post @ Northwest Techno delivered the news at 6:50pm yesterday and there is already 29 pages of responses.
You can tell by the posts in forums and on MySpace pages that this was a close knit community and many of these young people came together through online chats and forums dedicated the the Seattle rave and "un-dead" communities.
The first discussion of the March 24th rave I can find was posted on December 9th @ Northwest Techno forum. Posts show the young men and women were really looking forward to this rave, many because they could finally meet their online friends in person. This community is now shaken by a terrible tragedy and many are asking why?
The seven people who are said to be deceased according to posts @ Seattle Ravers Message Board & CandyRave boards are: Jason Travers, 32, Jeremy Martin, 26, Christopher Williamson, 21, Suzanne Thorne, 15 & Melissa Moore, 14. (Click on name for more details on the victim)
21 years old
(aka Deacon)
.
* Jeremy Martin26 years old
(aka Jeremy Chickenhed)
More photos
.
* Justin Schwartz (R)
22 years old
(aka Sushi)
.
.
* Jason Travers 32 years old
Jason's MySpace Profile
..
* Suzanne Thorne
15 years old
(aka Sunshine)
MySpace profile is private
* Melissa Moore
14 years old
(aka China Doll)
.
According to this "first hand account" posted at CandyRave.com by a poster only named as "Fred" about what happened Saturday morning:
"I was right here when it happened. it was the scariest hing ive ever experienced. jason was there, my brother, his three friends, it was at an after party at tthis guys house, Jesus and Ian and a couple other people. we all drank and played music and stuff, had a blast, then the party was calming down, some people were out on the front porch smoking, and i thought it was somebody banging really hard on the wall from 
out thtere over and over again, turned out o be gunshots, a guy opened the front dor to see why people were banging and a guy was laid up against the door with gunshot wounds all over his chest and stomach. he collapsed into the house and ttwo other people came in announced they were shot. then i heard more gunshots so i loked at my brother and said, "come on NOW!" and me him and jason and dar ran out he back dor as fast as we could and jumped a fence to the neighbors house.
Jesus was shot multiple times and maybe even killed, the police wouldnt release information on who was dead, shot, alive or anything. like 15 people, the only non wounded people, spend the entire day at he police station doing interviews and waiting and i guess this girl Suzanne (sunshine) was unaccounted for the whole time, not in the survivors section OR the wounded people. but i heard just in a conversations the a police officer MIGHT have escorted her off the property. 
i dont know though because she should have been there with us. the guy though after shooting as many people as he could (he had a pistol and a shotgun) he shot himself through the head in the face with his shotgun. ive never seen someones insides exposed like that before, i was terrified, i thought for sure he and maybe even whoever might be accompanying him would bust up in the house right away and shoot up everyone, we just ran the other way as fast as we could. im SO glad to be alive and im also INFINITELY grateful that my brother or jason or none of my brothers friends were hurt...."
(*) According to KING5 Seattle, Relatives of Jeremy Martin, 26, and Christopher Williamson, 21, confirmed that they were among the dead. Martin had been living in the house where the shooting occurred.
The Stranger blog is updating regularly on this subject, if you want to check it out. Also, please visit some of my fellow crime bloggers who have written on this tragedy. Huff's Crime Blog, Postcards from Hell, Look who's Tattling Now
Additional:
* Photos taken at the "Undead Rave" 3-24-06
* MySpace Capitol Hill Memorial Group- Memorial Page
* Post made by Kyle Huff on 2/1 about attending raves
~ Many thanks to G.L. for sending this article along with some other info. Is this the same Kyle Huff??
SERVICE PLANNED:
The Church Council of Greater Seattle has planned a Service of Hope, an opportunity for prayer, reflection and remembrance at the site of the killings, at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Join us at 2112 E. Republican Street. The public is invited. More information.
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Side note:
I am tired of hearing some of the media outlets describe the people who are part of the rave community as druggies, irresponsible and the like. I am not a part of this sub-culture but one thing that I found to be true is that the "rave" community or the fact that these young people went to a rave has NOTHING to do with what Kyle Huff did. I have found this close-knit group of people who are into the rave scene are NOT violent people. If anything, they promote love and kindness. PLUR is an acronym that stands for "Peace, Love, Unity, Respect", which is a credo of the rave culture. If you read any of the message boards I linked above, you will see these kids are NOT violent Zombie Killers, as the media would like us to believe. This is a tragedy through and through and we should be talking about these kids as victims not as criminals!
To be honest, I don't care if these kids were doing drugs and I don't see how it matters. Drug users do not deserve to die because they use drugs. I do not believe because they used drugs, they put themselves in the position to be murdered either. We were all young once, weren't we?
I would also like to squelch the rumors about this group of ravers being "zombies"... The theme of the rave was "Better Off Undead" so they dressed like dead people/zombies for the night! It is sad to see news reports stating these things because it is not true. A raver or candy kid is one who enjoys listening & dancing to electronic music, which is generally used to describe techno music that depends heavily on samples and is high energy, upbeat, and is dance inducing. Ravers are full of expression and will wear lots of bright colors, brightly colored jewelry (candy) and use glow sticks, glowing jewelry, etc. Of course, all ravers are different so the above was just a stereotype... either way, ravers or those associated with the rave community are NOT bad people!
Seattle News Sources: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, KING 5, The Seattle Times, 710 KIRO, KOMO TV
NEXT: Seattle Shooting Update
