The voices continue to whisper, even as you check the ammo of your guns. They say this will fix it, will fix you. Just one bloody night, and you’ll finally shed your mortal body and be reborn in the feminine spirit you’ve adored for so long. People would remember you, idolize you, and the horrors of that night would be spoken in the same breath as the Columbine Massacre. The voices promise. You pull on your “natural selection” shirt and fix your mascara. You are Randy Stair, and soon, you will join the ghost squad.

~

Randy Stair walked into the Weis supermarket, where he worked in Eaton Township, Pennsylvania, on June 8th, 2017, and began his night shift by blocking the exits. Once he was sure no one would be able to come in or out, he opened his duffle bag and removed the guns he’d brought. A few moments later, three of his coworkers would be dead, along with himself.

This wasn’t a random act but a calculated massacre that Randy Stair had been planning for some time. He’d wanted to do it for months so that he could die and be reborn as a female ghost and join a character from a children’s cartoon show. What led up to the Weis supermarket shooting? Where did his madness come from?

Not much is known outside of Randy’s own words on the subject of his early years. He states in a series of journal entries that were released after his death that he was bullied.

(Graphic content follows. All quotes by Randy are kept in original form with no edits.)

~

“I’ve hated people my entire life, I didn’t just wake up one day and start hating people. Middle school was when I really started to heat up and envision hurting the people in my class, such as Eric Waters. In 6 th -8 th grade the kid was twice my size. He looked like a 9 th /10 th grader. He was the class bully. He’s steal shit from my lunch and then give it back because I didn’t show and resistance; “this kid doesn’t even care! Haha!” he joked.”

~

Later, he goes on to downplay the bullying, calling it mere background noise compared to the other issues he was facing. Randy would masturbate in class while in high school, an act that somehow went unnoticed. He would sit in the back, dressed in baggy clothes, and spend the whole time slowly rubbing himself. While he enjoyed this exhibitionist streak, paradoxically, he stated several times that he hated his penis. He would self-diagnose as depressed and gender dysphoric. He believed he was born into the wrong body as a punishment, and he was, deep down, a girl.

Randy claimed that for years, he would crossdress. Every Wednesday, when his parents would leave to go bowling, he would either make videos for his YouTube channel or wear women’s clothing. The fact that no one seemed to notice his struggle with his own sexual identity angered him greatly. He was shocked that his mother and father had no idea what he was going through. This would be an ongoing theme in Randy’s life, going unnoticed.

~

“My parents don’t seem to have a fucking clue as to what goes on in my head. 90% of the time I’m as pale as a fucking lifeless corpse. In the end if my mom says, “I had no idea she was this depressed” or “why didn’t I see the signs?” or what the fuck ever, the n you should just stab yourself in the fucking chest for being so stupid. I mean HONESTLY, I don’t go anywhere unless I have to, I don’t speak to anyone unless spoken to, I make zero friends (by choice), I dress from head to foot in black (even my bra and leggings are black; find those yet? What about my black panties? HAHA), I always look like a ghoul sucked the joy and happiness out of my face (Ember), I can go on and on and on, but fuck that.”

~

Randy craved fame and, like many youths during the 2000s, turned to YouTube with the hope of making it his career. He created a YouTube channel called PioneersProductions and tried a variety of skits, commentaries, and other popular video types, but nothing stuck. That is until Mr. Horse Head.

That video involved Randy aping another popular YouTuber’s style by speaking back and forth with a toy, in this case, a child’s hobby horse. It did lightyears better than any of his other content, so Randy decided to double down on the idea. He created two more characters who would feature prominently in his other videos and in his own delusions.

Froggy was a small orange plastic or rubber frog who would serve as both an antagonist and a warped friend to Randy in his skits. Froggy would continuously berate and tease Randy in these skits, oftentimes hiding or destroying something he wanted or had been searching for. Randy seemed to project his self-hatred through the character, and as he started to form his twisted belief system, he even began to think that the toy had a kind of soul or consciousness.

Whale was a stuffed orca. Randy would pitch-shift his voice and make overtly homosexual comments when speaking as the whale. Whale acted hypersexually in his skits and made many advances toward Randy. The character seemed to have been an outlet for Randy’s sexual drive and frustration with his identity.

The two of them would be the primary focus of his videos until Randy’s delusions caused him to change the content of his channel. Once that happened, he came up with a way to explain to his viewers that Froggy and Whale would no longer be appearing in any more videos.

He filmed Amnesia Rape, where he developed amnesia after a hit to the head, and Froggy filmed Whale raping Randy while he was tied up. He then closed out the two characters in the video Extinction, where he killed them after Froggy posted the video online. He would go on to explain to a bloody Froggy that he was killing them because “She told me to.” She being Ember McLain, a cartoon ghost from the children’s TV show Danny Phantom. Ember and her crew of dead girls would be the new focus for not just his creativity but his whole world.

Randy began commissioning voice actors and animators and doing his own artwork for the new videos featuring a group of all-female ghosts done in the art style of the show. He created several original girls to fill out the roster of Ember’s Ghost Squad or EGS.

Randy believed that Ember had chosen him to join her squad of militarized dead in a spiritual battle that would wage throughout the dimensions. He would voice his frustrations on being in a male body and how he longed to die so that he could take on his true form.

~

I want to chop my penis off so bad… they’re SO FUCKING DISGUSTING. Why do guys like drawing those putrid things so much?? I swear to goddess….. Please, just stop….. I can’t wait to have my penis and butthole taken away and to have my pussy and breasts back… It’s agony… 24 years without them….24 YEARS! I miss my white skin, leggings, and long hair. I miss not having to breathe. I miss not being able to feel physical pain. I miss my bracelet. I want it all back…. This body is a punishment…. Most of all, I miss my cartoon like form. Bodies in this dimension are tolerable, but they’re nothing compared to that dimension.

~

As he was slipping further and further into insanity, he began to hear voices urging him on and on. He explained in a few of his later videos that he’d started to hear Ember after a series of events. While in high school, a popular kid died in a car crash. Randy took his classmate’s sudden death harder than anyone expected him to, including himself. He stated he hadn’t even known the person. Later on, he got word that another one of his schoolmates had died in yet another tragic car crash. Not long after, Randy was also involved in an accident in a parking lot. It was this moment that sent his mind on a dark turn.

He began to obsess over death and dying young. The voices became friends and comforted him. They fueled his desire to die while still a teenager. He began to focus on one voice in particular.

~

“Love of my life and afterlife”

~

Mackenzie West was one of the ghost girls Randy believed would recruit him after he died. He concocted a backstory for her about being abducted and raped before being murdered. He claimed she was his soulmate.

As he began to focus more on the EGS videos, Randy’s rage began to show. He would express his disdain for animators who would leave him hanging or voice actors who didn’t follow his deadlines.

~

“All the money that I intended to use on animators went towards ammunition; way to go you goddamn fuckers! You fucking blew it you worthless cunts…. I hope you’re kept up at night over this… I hope everytime you animate guns you wince with flashbacks. I was patient and nice, and you all FUCKED ME OVER…. Screw off….”

~

Send Request was a band that Randy obsessed over. He enjoyed their music and often used it in the intros to his videos. The lead singer of the band was one of the people he emailed right before the Weis supermarket shooting. He expressed how upset he was when he hadn't been able to get instrumental samples from one of their songs. Randy went so far as to get revenge on the band by planning to make their music the soundtrack of his school shooting video, Westborough High Massacre. Randy had graduated from Westborough High just a few years prior.

He was on a timetable; he had to finish his productions and legacy. He wanted to leave as much of himself behind as he could, like The Basement Tapes of his idols Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters.

Months before the tragedy at Weis, he made several worrying posts on his Twitter profile (now X.) Randy had very few active followers, but he had a large number of alt accounts with which he would post back and forth. It is suspected that one of these alt accounts was an EGS member, Rachael. The account would make ominous posts that echoed much of Randy’s twisted views and his obsession with the Columbine School shooting. (There is supporting evidence that Rachael was a separate person. However, all posts seem to stop after the shootings, and given Stair’s amount of sock puppet social media accounts, it seems more likely that it was one of his.)

Randy also purchased two shotguns and numerous rounds of ammo in preparation for the massacre. He was amazed at how easy it was to procure the firearms. He would spend hours practicing on a homemade range. He filmed many of these shooting sessions as well. Once he was ready, he picked a day and waited. He composed several emails to people he cared enough about to warrant it.

~

“…I hate humans…I hate society…I hate the thought of beling alive…I’ve almost always hated life…”EGS” was the ultimate way to express myself without being considered a threat…it was a safty net…and it was all authentic and real…nothing I said or wrote for “EGS” was overdramatized or hypothetical..if I said I wanted to kill people, I meant it.If I said I was lost, stuck, and wanted to kill myself…I meant it. Those “Conspiring a Massacre” videos were real.”

~

After Randy got the pistol grip shotguns he wanted, he realized that he didn’t have much time if he planned on sticking to the date he had set. One of the managers who worked with him on the night shift, a person he wanted to kill, was looking to change shifts.

He admitted he could wait, but he didn’t want to. Every day he waited, he felt, was one more day in a world he hated. No, he was determined to meet this bloody deadline and began his killings right after his mascara came in the mail. It was a particular shade of black. So he could match his number one ghost girl, Ember. So when June 8th arrived, he went to work as if it was just a normal day. The store was empty of customers; only his regular coworkers and the new girl were there. No one was at the front to notice him barricade the doors.

Randy shot more than 50 rounds that night. He ended the lives of Victoria Brong, Terry Lee Sterling, and Brian Hayes. The new girl, Kristen Newell, didn’t hear the initial shots; she was stocking the coolers with her headphones on. Surveillance footage showed that Randy stood behind her but, for some reason, decided to spare her life. When Randy began to shoot wildly into the aisles, she heard the gunfire and ran into the back room.

After a few minutes of randomly shooting products, Randy went into the back of the deli and shot himself in the head. An autopsy report showed high levels of the drug diphenhydramine or DHP, which is commonly found in allergy medication. DHP is also used recreationally to experience the disassociation and hallucinations it can cause. The level of the drug needed to achieve these states is dangerously close to the overdose threshold, which can cause delirium and psychosis. (Similar deliriants were discussed in Fringe! Do Fish Dream Of Psychedelic Frogs?)

~

“My goals are extreme, but one of them is a must. I want to form a suicide cult following. If it happens after I’m dead then so be it, but I want people to spread EGS around the globe and to perform mass suicides, sacrificing their lives for the squad. Something tells me at least one human will take their own life from watching “EGS” and the parents will cause a national uproar over it, all towards me. And I’ll just say “what do you want me to do about it?” and that be it. Fucking humans, always looking to blame SOMEBODY. Keep a better eye on your kids then you morons.”

~

Randy did get his wish, in a way. Enter Naze Warbled (an online pseudonym) and the EGS Wiki. The Wiki and YouTube channel are filled with archived EGS work by Randy and new works from Naze. Not much is known about the person behind the continuation of Stair’s work other than he/she claims the new contributions are purely fictional.

However, Naze appears to have more in common with Randy than just an affinity for ghostly girls. Postings by Naze and other members of the EGS circle mirror much of Stair’s twisted belief system. They discuss that squads of ghosts will bring into their ranks the lost and broken and will be the end of humanity. Now, this could all be an elaborate sort of roleplay by one very dedicated person. Randy himself had dozens of active alt accounts across social sites, a practice that is quite common. This could be the same with Naze.

The other end of the spectrum could also be true. That the same hero worship Randy had for the Columbine shooters is something he now inspires in others. While his crime was all but a flash in the pan for mainstream media, he did get the fame he was always seeking from the internet.

Sources

[Wikitubia- “PioneersProductions”/School Shooters- “Randy Stair’s Journal,” Peter Langman/CBS News- “Survivor of grocery store killing spree saw killer but he spared her, according to search warrant”/Crime Salad- “The Weis Market Killer: Randy Stair”/Talk Murder To Me- “YouTuber Randy Stair Flipped Coin To Decide Shooting Spree,” Johnny]

Human Monsters: Randy Stair, The Ghost Squad Murders

The Ant Hill Kids: Salvation Through Mutilation