CLOVIS, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico judge on Thursday ordered the teenager accused of fatally shooting two workers inside a public library and wounding four other people to remain in custody after prosecutors said he posed a threat to himself and others.
Nathaniel Jouett faces multiple charges of first-degree murder, assault, aggravated battery and child abuse stemming from Monday's shooting inside the library in Clovis, a rural community near the stateline with Texas.
Prosecutors said suicide notes were found at the teen's home and the youth's pastor has also said that the teen contemplated suicide several months before the shooting. Jouett's lawyer, Jennifer Birmingham, did not oppose the prosecutors' request.
Prosecutors have said they will seek to have Jouett, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, tried as an adult. They planned to file paperwork formalizing the request on Friday.
Jouett told investigators he had been thinking "bad things" for some time and initially planned to target his school because he was mad, court records said.
The teen said he didn't know why he went to the library and that he did not know any of the victims, the records said.
Jouett's father called Clovis police when he discovered two handguns missing on Monday and reported his son missing, but the shooting had already happened.
Nathaniel Jouett told investigators he first used the library's bathroom, exited and started shooting and yelling. Asked by investigators during an interview about what he was thinking at the time, he said: "I was mad."
According to court documents, police said Jouett after his arrest saw a woman lying on the ground as he was escorted away and asked an investigator during his interview why no one had helped her.
The investigator asked him to think about it for a moment. Jouett answered: "I feel awful. I don't like hurting people."
The teen also said during the interview that no one liked him and he had thought he would kill himself or "kill a bunch of people," the court records said.
Jouett told investigators he did not want to tell his family, his girlfriend or his friends at the Living Word Church of God about what he had been thinking of doing because he "knew it was wrong," the records stated.
The Associated Press generally does not identify juveniles accused of crimes. It is identifying Jouett because of the seriousness of the crime and because authorities plan to prosecute him as an adult.