YouTuber Randy Stair Flipped Coin To Decide Shooting Spree

Randy Stair is an American mass murderer that shot and killed 3 people at the Weis Markets Supermarket in Eaton Township, Pennsylvania, before turning the gun on himself. Before his shooting spree, Stair uploaded many videos and tweeted about his plans on his Twitter account.

Heads or Shells

Although Randy Stairs’ private videos weren’t discovered until after the Weis Supermarket shooting, they show us that he had been planning the massacre for several months.

In a video that he recorded with a handy cam, Stair presents a quarter and says that the fate of his employees’ life’s rest on a 2 out of 3 coin flip.

“If it’s heads, I’ll do it here. Tails… supermarket.”

Whether the coin was heads or tails, Randy Stair was going to kill himself.

Unfortunately, the last flip landed on tails, which meant that he believed it dictated his fate that he shoot his co-workers and then himself.

“It’s tails folks, which means there’s going to be a loss of a human life besides my own.”

Goodbye Humans

Shortly before he began his massacre that would leave 4 people dead, Randy Stair (Tweeting under his alias Andrew Blaze) left a foreboding message.

“Goodbye humans… I’ll miss you.”

He would leave many of these foreboding messages prior to the massacre. In an entry from May 22nd, Stair said he was ready to “Get pissed, gear up, have fun!”

The last entry being on June 5th, described his readiness to end his life. He wrote, “I’m so ready to die. Two more full nights and that’s it. I’ve officially accepted that Wednesday night will be the death of me.”

Randy’s scheduled work shift began at 11pm, which he showed up as usual. He accomplished his normal work task and blocked the exits of the store.

At 11:37pm CCTV shows Stair walking out of the store and returning to his car. He then moves his car to the back of the building, where he positions it to block another store exit.

He takes out his duffle bag along with 100 rounds.

At 12:41am Randy Stair reenters Weis, sets down his duffle bag and locks the front door behind him. For him, there is now no turning back.

Along with the 3 innocent lives he took, he also caused “extensive damage” to the interior of the supermarket by “shooting up different aisles and counters.”

Extensive Damage

Why Do Mass Shooters Think This Will Work?

Randy also shot several propane tanks, hoping that they would cause more damage.

This is an interesting phenomenon that I have seen in other cases as well, especially with inexperienced shooters, in that their thought process is that simply shooting a propane tank will make it explode.

A myth most likely learned from violent video games and movies.

Only under certain conditions will a propane tank explode. Air must be introduced to the propane along with a ‘spark’ or source hot enough to ignite the propane. By the time air is introduced to the mixture (via the puncturing of the tank), the ignition source (the hot friction caused by the round) has already passed through and dissipated.

It seems to me that Randy Stair should have known this, since one of his shooting videos shows him trying several times to make it explode.

Being familiar with the internet, and especially YouTube, he could have easily searched to find out it’s possibility.

In one handwritten journal entry, Stair claimed his plan was to use a “cage full” of propane tanks, leaving them outside the store, and to shoot them to cause “mass destruction.”

“If I find the key (to the propane cages), it changes everything.”

Total Destruction

In total, Randy Stair fired 59 shots and, according to Jeff Mitchell, the Wyoming County District Attorney, 49 live (unfired) rounds were collected throughout the store.

At 12:37am Mitchell says that Stair send a text to his mother which “was basically a suicide note.” Randy’s mother was not awake to see the message. I can’t imagine her seeing that text when she woke up.

The Decline of Randy Stair

Why did Randy Stair do what he did?

In 2008, Randy Stair started his YouTube channel, pioneersproduction, which he used as a parody channel, similar to Smosh. He was 15-years-old at the time.

In a video Randy looks back at this channel and says, “back then I was a 15-year-old, but in reality, I was like a 12-year-old.”

Many of his videos revolved around two fictional characters, ‘Froggy’ and ‘Whale’

According to Randy, his decline started happening in 2012 after a traumatic incident. Someone who he knew, although not very well, from highschool was involved in a fatal car accident.

Although Randy admitted to barely knowing the highschool senior, this event triggered a change in his ideas for his YouTube channel.

Randy started “doing shitty in all my classes.”

Through the rest of 2012, Randy would change the direction of his YouTube channel until in January 2013 when he hit a low point. He referred to it as the “ultimate demise of my mind.”

The event was another car wreck, however, this time it was a someone he knew well from one of his college classes.

Randy’s decline can be seen clearly in his videos, where the comedy he was producing began getting “darker”.

According to Randy, “I can’t explain it, something just broke.”

If things couldn’t get any worse for him, in February 2013, he was involved in a car accident. His car was sandwiched between two other cars in a parking lot.

“That sent me into an area that I’ve never really been before, where I started to get ideas like never before.”

At the end of 2013, Randy’s comedy ceased and a new, darker mind arose.

Victims

We often focus solely on the crime and overlook the victims all together. I’m guilty of that, and I’ll admit it.

Born on August, 10, 1991, Victoria Todd Brong was the youngest victim of the June 8, 2017 massacre. Sadly, Brong leaves behind a young son.

Watching the tribute video composed by her family shows a mother truly loving and dedicated to her son. A mother raised in a loving home, a Harry Potter fan, and smiling and happy person all together.

Terry Lee Sterling was a 63-year-old who was proceeded to death by his wife Margene.

Out of the 5 employees that worked Wednesday’s overnight shift, only 1 made it out. But that is only because Kristan Newell was spared by the shooter that night.

Well, perhaps Randy Stair intended to come back for Kristan, but she quickly hid in the aisle for register five. “She watched Stair walk to the bakery section.” And then she heard more booms from Randy’s shotgun.