“Robert Smith considered committing a shooting at his high school where he thought about killing his teachers. He decided instead to attack a local beauty salon that also was a cosmetology school. His behavior was remarkably calm and callous. He rounded up a group of women and their children, made them lie down, and began shooting them. When one of the wounded women was squirming, he stabbed her with a knife. During the massacre, Smith was laughing. He later reported having felt exhilarated while killing. When asked about shooting a baby, he replied, ‘Well, it was going to grow up and become an adult.‘
When the police arrived, he casually announced, ‘I shot some people . . . They’re back there.’ He later stated that he had been disappointed that there hadn’t been more people to kill. When asked what he would have done if his mother and sister had been there, he said: ‘I would have shot them, too.’ In fact, he reportedly had once planned to kill his father with a knife, waiting for him to come home so he could murder him. The motivation for this remains unknown.
Regarding the motivation for the massacre, Smith stated, ‘I wanted to kill about 40 people so I could make a name for myself. I wanted people to know who I was.’ Another possible factor was his hostility toward women. He reportedly ‘enter- tained fantasies in which women were shot or stabbed.’ This would explain his choice of the beauty salon as the location for his attack. During the trial, he wrote several notes to another inmate. One said, ‘My attorney is making everyone think that I’m completely insane.’ Another one included a statement that to avoid a prison sentence, ‘I’m trying for that hospital.’ His attempted insanity plea was not successful.”