School shooters use Myspace to network

JOKELA, Finland, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Police in Finland are investigating whether a teenager who killed eight classmates had Internet contact with an American teen who also plotted a school attack.

Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed eight people and then himself Nov. 7 at Tuusula High School in Jokela. Authorities now believe he and 14-year-old Dillon Cossey of Philadelphia, who was arrested for planning a similar attack, may have contacted each other through a myspace.com group dedicated to the Columbine killers, CNN reported Monday.

Police said they would "look closely at IT material" after a British newspaper claimed Auvinen had contact with Cossey, who was officially charged with unlawful transfer of a firearm, possession of a firearm by a minor, corruption of a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of reckless endangerment.

It is believed the two youths communicated using the MySpace groups, "RIP Eric and Dylan," a reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 schoolmates at Columbine High School in suburban Denver in 1999, and "Natural Selection."