SEATTLE – In what has become a chillingly familiar event across the country, school authorities in eastern Washington recently discovered a gun and a knife in the backpack of a student. But what stunned the small town of Colville was whom the backpack belonged to: a 10-year-old student at Fort Colville Elementary School.

School authorities said two fifth-grade boys planned to use the weapons to lure another student outside the school and kill her “because she was really annoying.”

The boys last week confessed to plans to harm an additional six students at the school.