Journal entries detail plot to attack Landstown High

VIRGINIA BEACH

Philip Bay planned the day of attack on Landstown High School in meticulous detail, a prosecutor said.

It would start at 6 a.m. on April 20, 2009, with a call to a classmate who had conspired to help him kill at least 30 people, Bay wrote in a note that Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant read in Circuit Court on Monday as Bay's trial started. The shooting would start at 11:15 a.m., he wrote.

It would end when Bay took his own life at noon after detonating homemade bombs, he wrote, shooting students with sawed-off shotguns and causing the propane tank in the science lab to explode. In the hours in between, Bay wrote, he would put the final touches on his plot: load weapons and sharpen blades at 8:30 a.m. and steal a car two hours later.

One of his lawyers, defense attorney Eric Korslund, told jurors he will not dispute that Bay planned to carry out the attack. Prosecutors will "prove this beyond a reasonable doubt," Korslund said as he waved a small stack of papers in the air. "I'm waving the white flag."

But Bay suffered from mental illness exacerbated by improper medication and was insane at the time of the crimes, Korslund said. In addition to bipolar disorder, he said, Bay suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by his father's corporal punishment and emotional abuse.

Korslund snapped his fingers. Bay was a "young man whose moods would change like that," he said. "It's easy to hate Philip Bay, but we're all here to give him a fair trial."

Bay, a former Landstown student accused of engineering a Columbine-style attack on his school, pleaded not guilty Monday. He faces 11 counts of manufacturing or possessing an explosive device with intent to cause harm, possessing a weapon of terrorism with intent to terrorize, two counts of possessing a sawed-off shotgun, soliciting or recruiting for an act of terrorism, and committing, conspiring or aiding in the commission of an act of terrorism.

The alleged plot was thwarted just weeks before it was set to take place when police arrested Bay and two co-defendants after receiving a tip. The co-defendants have pleaded guilty in juvenile court to possessing or using a sawed-off shotgun and possessing weapons of terrorism. They have not yet been sentenced and are scheduled to testify for the prosecution.

Jurors listened to opening statements - which were interrupted when the power went out for about half an hour Monday afternoon - and heard testimony from a fire investigator who said he discovered a host of bomb-making materials in Bay's bedroom.

The trial is set to last through the end of the week.

Bryant called Bay "the mastermind, the bomb-maker and the recruiter for this suicide mission," and said Landstown notebooks, calendars and photos will help prove Bay, now 19, set out to kill at least 30 people.

He began "the countdown to terror" on April 16, 2007, the day of the Virginia Tech massacre, Bryant told jurors. Bay had wanted to be the one to cause that kind of destruction, the prosecutor said, and he was prepared to kill his mother in order to steal a car.

"I will be armed to the teeth with guns, knives and everything else. I will kill, kill, kill. You have my word," Bryant quoted from a journal he said belonged to Bay.

Bay listened from the defense table with little expression, alternately removing his glasses and replacing them. His appearance was changed markedly from the time of his arrest, when the then-17-year-old wore chin-length hair, casual clothes and a thin mustache. A clean-shaven Bay on Monday donned a dress shirt, dress pants and a sweater vest, and his much-shorter hair was parted and slicked to the sides.

He politely answered a judge's questions with, "Yes, sir."

Korslund said multiple doctors will testify Bay was legally insane when he planned the attack - he did not understand right from wrong. "He suffered from a mental disease."

Pilot reporter Kathy Adams contributed to this story.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5131, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com