The Nation - News from May 23, 1988

Winnetka, Ill., residents held hands at church services and prayed for children “violated by danger, violence and death” in a rampage by a woman who killed a boy, wounded six people and poisoned at least seven others. Meanwhile, investigators awaited results of tests on two vials of powder found in an apartment occupied by Laurie Wasserman Dann, who invaded Hubbard Woods Elementary School in an affluent neighborhood north of Chicago on Friday and opened fire in a second-grade classroom. The gunfire left Nick Corwin, 8, dead and five classmates wounded. Dann, 30, who had worked as a baby-sitter in the neighborhood, then shot a 20-year-old man before holing up in his home where she later shot herself to death. “This area, Hubbard Woods, needs God’s renewal and healing,” Father Mike Weston told morning services at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Later, about 400 people jammed another Catholic church where an ecumenical service of prayers and readings was led by 15 Jewish, Catholic and Protestant religious leaders who each wore a red sash symbolizing the community’s suffering.