A year after a 17-year-old Antioch High School student shot and killed classmate Josselin Corea Escalante before turning the gun on himself, the Metro Nashville Police Department concluded that the shooter acted alone.
But police are now searching for his mother.
Solomon Henderson fired a nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol 10 times inside the school’s cafeteria Jan. 22, 2025. Escalante, 16, was fatally wounded and another student was grazed by a bullet. Henderson then shot himself.
Police connected the gun Henderson used in the shooting to his mother, Chrysta Thomas, through DNA evidence. Thomas is a convicted felon and barred from possessing any firearms.
Thomas, 40, is wanted on a charge of unlawful gun possession by a convicted felon, Nashville Police said in a news release Jan. 21.
Henderson had a record for violent acts. At the time of the shooting, he was on probation for pulling a box cutter on a student. His juvenile record said Henderson would be home schooled and supervised by his mother.
“As to the motive, detectives closely scrutinized on-line material left by Henderson, including writings on non-traditional websites and in journal entries, before concluding that Henderson idolized mass murderers from around the world, referred to them as ‘saints,’ and longed to have the ‘sainthood’ that he believed they had achieved,” police said. “Henderson mirrored antisemitic and white supremacist ideologies, and was strongly influenced by satanic and violent extremist material on the Internet.”
Much like the school shooters Henderson idolized, he acted alone, the police department said in their statement.
But while no one has been charged in connection with the shooting, his mother is wanted by police. Thomas was convicted in 2010 in California of possession of a stolen vehicle in California.
After the shooting, Henderson’s family left Nashville for “an unknown destination,” police said.
“Thomas’ name has been entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center computer system with nationwide extradition,” police said.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Police give update a year after Antioch High School shooting
