On March 1, 1994, an armed intruder entered the Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri, and opened fire in the school’s mess hall. The shooting killed 58-year-old Richard George Vancena, a military veteran who worked as a manager in the kitchen, and 33-year-old cook Robin Michelle Coleman. Students were present but no students were physically harmed during the attack.

The shooter was identified as 33-year-old Dante D. Hayes, described in reports as a hunter and ex-convict. Hayes had come to campus in an intoxicated state reportedly searching for his wife, Anna Hayes, after a domestic dispute the night before; when he did not find her he turned his aggression on staff in the cafeteria. Officers apprehended Hayes at the scene.

Hayes was tried, convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole; that sentence was upheld by the state Court of Appeals in April 1997. Does anyone have memories of the Kemper campus from that time or information about the victims’ roles at the school?