Killer’s Gruesome Writings Foreshadowed Rampage

A violent, profane short story about a mass killing written by James M. Buquet a month before he gunned down four people at a fitness club appears to support the police contention that the rampage was the act of an unstable teen-ager bent on murder, and not directed at any specific targets.

Police said Buquet did not know any of his victims and did not harbor a grudge toward any patron or employee of the Family Fitness Center, which he and his family had recently joined.

Buquet, 19, drove to the fitness center at noontime Thursday, dashed inside, shouted profanities and laughed as he killed three women and one man, then shotgunned himself to death before police arrived, witnesses said.

The story, written for a creative writing class at Grossmont College and read aloud by Buquet in class on Sept. 15, has chilling parallels to the slaughter he carried out at the health club, where Buquet was known as an angry loner.

“The story seems to show this was not a revenge or ‘Fatal Attraction’ kind of killing,” said San Diego psychologist Thomas Harpley, who has been counseling survivors. “The killings were apparently the act of a troubled young man who had a deep inner turmoil that he didn’t share with anyone,” except in his fiction.

The 13-page story concerns an angry, obscenity-spewing, alcoholic character named Natas A. Bishop who despises the human race and who “didn’t feel right at night unless he thought about killing.” According to the story:

“In the day, everything was fine, he could do his job down at the service station, he could stomach foods sometimes and he would even pretend to like people and talk to them. That got a little easier with time. Even in the day it was difficult to stomach their weaknesses but he managed. At night though. That is when the demons came out to play. He gave up on sleep years ago. . . . He’d go out and jog, he worked out at night.”

Natas--which is Satan spelled backward--considers beating up an old man at a bar but decides instead to commit mass murder to clear his depression:

“He had to grab life, he had to face the beast and be a warrior. He couldn’t get lost, like them. His time was now. He would die if that’s what it took. A glorious death early would be better. . . . He had to grab society and shake them, just let them know that there will be a death and they had to take life more seriously than this.”

At one point, Natas loads his shotgun and starts looking for a place to kill people. “God how many times had he thought about this? At night it was the last thought he had. The one that put him to sleep. In fact, he didn’t feel right at night unless he thought about killing.”

Eventually, Natas drives his 1967 Camaro--Buquet drove an aging Datsun 280-Z sports car--to a fast-food restaurant:

“Slowly he walked the eternity to the door. A weight pressed against his soul. It was fear that’s what it was about, he knew. That is what this life was ruled by. This is what he had to fight. He had to face the beast and be a warrior. All his life he hated people for not fighting the beast.”

Natas kills the first man he encounters--just as Buquet did--and then starts shooting wildly:

“Detesting their weakness, Natas cocked the shot gun again and went right up to the lady. He put the gun in the ladies face and pulled back the trigger. The pellets hit her face . . .

“He put all four shots in the crowd. About six people fell. He methodically loaded the gun and shot at the crowd again. They just stood there like rabbits and took the shot gun blast. They had no place to run and they just stood there shivering with fright.”

With police closing in, Natas walks out of the restaurant carnage:

“Slowly, Natas raised his gun up and put it in his mouth. The voice stopped. Without a second of hesitation, Natas found the end. He pulled the trigger.”

Despite the story’s venom and bloody ending, other students in the writing class did not find it unusual or frightening. Stories written in the mode of Stephen King and action movies are apparently not uncommon in the class.

“Some of the descriptions were very, very graphic, you know, but I mean the kid was a nice kid in class,” student Michael Wells told KNSD-TV. After Buquet read the story, “he never came back to class.”

After quitting college, Buquet bought a shotgun at an El Cajon pawnshop for $150 and, after the required 15-day waiting period, picked up the weapon Monday.

His parents, Bob and Janet Buquet, have said their son underwent “Christian treatment” for drug abuse. Janet Buquet said he had recently begun listening to “metallic music” and looking at “dark reading materials.”

Bob Buquet owns a saw equipment store in San Diego, Janet Buquet runs a day-care center, and the family lives in a spacious hilltop home in rural Alpine.

The Buquets have said their son had recently been undergoing professional treatment for depression but seemed improved of late.

“What snapped, I don’t know,” Janet Buquet said. “But something snapped, because that was not our Jimmy. He wasn’t violent. He was just very quiet. He’d go inward. He’d do a lot of writing in his room. He’d retreat from us.”