Posted: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:25 PM - 10,251 Readers

By: Mara Gay

Colton Tooley's friends and family say they don't know how it all went so wrong.

They're struggling to understand how the kind, reserved guy they knew could be the same terror-inducing gunman who donned a ski mask and ran through the campus of the University of Texas at Austin shooting an AK-47 before taking his own life on Tuesday.

"He was a bright, intelligent, respectful and sweet boy," Rachel Platis, who attended high school with Tooley and shared a college class with him, told AOL News today.


But police and witnesses say that it was Tooley, a 19-year-old UT sophomore from Austin, who caused the terrifying scene when he opened fire outside the university's library, sending students running and SWAT teams descending onto the massive campus. There were no other deaths or injuries.

Those who knew Tooley say that he was always quiet and that there was nothing to suggest that the mathematics major was about to snap.

"When I heard his name over the radio yesterday, I just couldn't believe it. It was really unbelievable," Mason Tate, who attended middle and high school with Tooley, told AOL News today in a phone interview. "I had a feeling in my chest like ... I don't know how to describe it. My chest just got a kind of like tingly feeling. It was just unbelievable. He was not violent."

A man who would identify himself only as Marcus and said he was Tooley's cousin said the family was in shock.

"He was a very smart guy, very intelligent, excellent student. He wouldn't or couldn't hurt a fly," Marcus told reporters Tuesday evening outside the family's Austin home, according to The Associated Press. "If he was depressed, you would never know it. He never usually expressed emotion. This is a great shock to me and my family."

A voice mail message left today for Tooley's parents was not immediately returned. His mother, Idalia Tooley, runs a day care center out of the family's home. According to multiple local news reports, Tooley's father is a veterinarian.

The principal of Austin's Crockett High School, where Tooley graduated seventh in his class in 2009, said the teenager was described as "brilliant," "meticulous" and "respectful" by his former teachers. "All of us in the Crockett High School community are shocked and saddened by today's tragedy at the University of Texas," the school's principal, Craig Shapiro, said in a statement Tuesday. "Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Colton Tooley."

Many said Tooley was always trying to help his classmates with complicated math problems he had no trouble understanding.

"We always had a good time in the classroom," Devon Sepeda, a classmate of Tooley's, told the university's Daily Texan. "He helped everyone that asked for it. Of all people at UT, I never would have thought it would have been him."

But as they searched for answers, others wondered if Tooley was hiding pain and loneliness behind his reserved demeanor.

"He was always such a loner type of person," Tate said. "I don't know if maybe he liked being by himself or he thought he couldn't make friends with other people. But if it was me, I would have been kind of depressed."

On a Facebook page dedicated to Tooley's memory, Tate told his friend he was sorry that he had felt so alone. "I, like everyone posting on this page, deeply regret not being there when you needed someone," Tate wrote.

Friends and old high school classmates apologized for not reaching out until it was too late. "I am so so sorry that you were driven to this," Troy Mattern wrote on the page. "You are loved even if we didn't do a very good job of showing that to you."

Tooley's friend Beatriz Salgado, a sophomore, wrote that Tooley was "going through a hard time" and didn't see another way out.

"Everyone should have taken a moment to actually get to know you. You were such a smart and friendly person," Salgado wrote. "You had a good heart and it's sad that most people didn't know that. I know you did what you did because you were going through something hard in your life that you felt you didn't have a way out. I hope you find your happiness in Heaven, and I wish things would have gone different in your life."

Neal Simon, also a UT sophomore, didn't know Tooley at all. But he was there Tuesday when Tooley came into the library, and heard the shots ring out. Simon said he spent the day trying to comfort his friends on campus. "We should use something like this to make an impact and make a difference at UT," he said today in a phone interview. "I just felt like [Tooley] needed somebody to be there for him."

*  Story Contributed by: Mara Gay