MARYSVILLE — Like the detectives investigating the tragedy, the lone survivor of the Marysville Pilchuck High School shootings last fall doesn’t know exactly why Jaylen Fryberg fired at him and killed his best friends and then himself.
On Jan. 28, three months and four days after the shootings, Nate Hatch shared his observations with detectives.
A redacted transcript of the 15-page interview was made public Wednesday. The document inadvertently had been omitted from some 1,600 pages of investigative records released in early September, officials said.
Nate was accompanied by his mother and grandfather during the 34-minute interview. He’d spent nearly two weeks at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after being shot in the jaw and left for dead in the high school cafeteria on Oct. 24.
Nate described his friendship with Jaylen and speculated that a breakup with a girlfriend may have led Jaylen to shoot five companions and kill himself.
Nate had known Jaylen, his second cousin, since kindergarten. They became close friends in middle school, where they played football and wrestled together.
Nate considered his cousin and next-door neighbor, Andrew Fryberg, his best friend.
“He was pretty much a brother to me,” he said, reportedly fighting back tears.
Andrew Fryberg, Gia Soriano, Zoe Galasso and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit all died after being shot in the head. Nate spent nearly two weeks in the hospital. All were freshmen.
Nate told detectives he believes Jaylen took a breakup with his girlfriend hard. He had invited her to a homecoming dance the week before the shootings but spent some time afterward with another girl.
Jaylen regretted it and wanted his girlfriend back.
“I think he talked a lot about his girlfriend or his ex-girlfriend …” Nate told detectives with a sigh. “And that he just didn’t want to live no more and he might as well die now.”
Nate dismissed the speculation that a fight with a fellow football player, which led to a suspension from school, had anything to do with the shootings. The fight occurred the week of the Oct. 17 homecoming dance. Jaylen was suspended for three days, Oct. 15-17, but he was allowed to attend homecoming festivities. The suspension ended one week before the shootings.
The shootings occurred as Nate sat at the table in the school’s large cafeteria with Jaylen and their friends. He was playing a game on his phone when the gunfire began.
Detectives asked Nate why he believes Jaylen shot him.
“Because I’m one of his best friends and he wanted me to go with him,” he said.
That interpretation mirrors sentiments Jaylen shared in a text sent to his family just moments before the shootings. In it, he wrote: “I needed to do this tho … I wasn’t happy. And I need my crew with me too. I’m sorry. I love you.”
Nate noticed in the weeks leading up to the shooting that Jaylen seemed to lose interest in schoolwork.
“He like stopped caring, like he would just sleep in class, like leading up two weeks before (the shooting) probably, he just started sleeping and slacking off.”
Wednesday’s release of the transcript came the day after Jaylen’s father, Raymond Fryberg, was found guilty of illegally possessing firearms, including the gun that his son used in the cafeteria shootings.
A U.S. District Court jury convicted Fryberg, 42, on all six counts of illegal firearm possession.
Raymond Fryberg was the subject of a 2002 protection order in Tulalip Tribal Court that forbade him from owning guns. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 11.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446; stevick@heraldnet.com.
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