Perpetrator of Finnish school shooting dies in hospital

November 8, 2007 Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the gunman who killed eight people in the Jokela school shooting in Finland yesterday, has died in hospital from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

"He died at 22h14 of a one-bullet injury in the head," said traumatology physician Eero Hirvensalo, chief of the Helsinki University Hospital.

Auvinen, 18, murdered his headmistress, school nurse and six students, as well as wounding one other victim, before turning his gun on himself.

When police special units arrived on-scene and entered the school they were initially shot at, but when they reached Auvinen he was already unconscious, and no rounds were fired by the police.

Auvinen had no previous criminal convictions, and had received his gun license several weeks previously. He purchased his gun on October 19.

In a text describing himself on the video sharing site YouTube, where he had posted a total of 89 videos, including some showing him firing his gun and others directly referring to the killing, he said that he was "a cynical existentialist, anti-human humanist, anti-social social-Darwinist, realistic idealist and god-like atheist."

"I am prepared to fight and die for my cause," he continued. "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection."