Va. Beach teen was ready for blood bath, videos show

VIRGINIA BEACH

Brandyn Golias was tired of the bullying.

Taunts by fellow Landstown High School students had escalated to physical attacks by the start of his sophomore year in 2008. So he joined a classmate who was planning to attack the school with shotguns and explosives, Golias testified in Circuit Court on Tuesday.

That classmate, Philip Bay, is on trial, accused of engineering a plot to kill at least 30 people in April 2009. Bay's defense attorneys have said they plan to prove he suffered from mental illnesses that left him legally insane at the time.

Golias is credited for thwarting the attack. He has pleaded guilty in juvenile court to possessing or using a sawed-off shotgun and possessing weapons of terrorism. He will be sentenced in December.

He testified about his experiences at the school.

A group of people had harassed him since he'd started at Landstown. Classmates told Golias that he was worthless and should kill himself, and one attack left him with a concussion.

Golias, then 15, and Bay, then 17, had forged a friendship over video games and gun talks. Bay gave Golias the nickname Neo from the movie "The Matrix," and Bay called himself Wolfie.

By late December 2008, they were making videos on a borrowed camera inside Bay's home. They wanted to put an end to what they claimed was rampant bullying that went ignored by school officials.

"I didn't choose to do this. I don't want to do this," Bay said into the camera in one of several videos played for jurors Tuesday. "I have to be the champion of those who are neglected and ridiculed by their classmates and wake up every day and are forced by law to go to hell every day. I am their patron saint, and the whole world is blind to their suffering. They're either blind to it, or they ignore it, but I will make them see."

At another point, he said, "I'm doing this in the name of God, for God."

The pair showed off two sawed-off shotguns and explosives placed neatly across Bay's living room floor in another video played in court. They openly ponder what police will make of the videos after they've attacked the school and killed themselves.

"You are literally looking at dead people," Golias said.

By March 2009, Golias had pulled out and Bay appeared with a different classmate on camera - James Hokaj. Like Golias, Hokaj, now 17, has pleaded guilty to two charges in juvenile court and has not been sentenced.

Hokaj said on camera he went along with Bay because it was his destiny. He testified in court Tuesday that he'd gone along with the plot in order to convince Bay not to carry it out.

They practiced shooting the shotguns in the woods, making a racket that apparently aroused police, according to one video. Bay said he ran from an officer who tried to talk to him as he walked out of the woods.

"To the police officers watching this tape: You could've stopped this. You could've stopped this a million times," Bay said.

The plan was stopped, authorities have said, when Golias told his mother to take him to the police station to report it just weeks before the attack was to take place.

Golias testified he did not know the plan was serious until Bay told him it was too late to back out. It was only after transferring from Landstown in early April that he felt he could tell his mother, he said.

Bay's attorneys questioned Golias' and Hokaj's stories.

Authorities seized bags and boxes full of evidence, some of which filled a ledge on the judge's bench Tuesday. Fire investigator Kevin Newton said he discovered boxes of bullets, sawed-off shotguns and at least seven Molotov cocktails and 15 pipe bombs belonging to Bay.

Several had names scrawled across them. The name Magdalena and a cross decorated a shotgun.

One of the pipe bombs, if detonated in a confined space, could have injured 75 people, Newton testified. A single Molotov cocktail could have ignited a fire spanning 20 to 30 feet.

Bay 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.

Bay, in dress pants, dress shirt and sweater-vest, listened to testimony with little expression Tuesday. At times, he looked down at the table as a casual and long-haired version of himself ranted about injustice and detailed his plan.

His trial resumes at 2 p.m. today.

Pilot writer Kathy Adams contributed to this report.

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