Jackson Township police say a Canal Fulton police officer performing a welfare check on Lauren Kaufman and Mason Brown found them together around 8.30pm on Friday in a wooded area behind a development in Jackson Township.
Both teens were shot in the head and police recovered a handgun at the scene.
Kaufman was pronounced dead on the spot. Brown died at a hospital at 2am on Saturday.
The girl was a sophomore at Northwest High School in Canal Fulton, where the boy was enrolled as a junior. Northwest High School Principal Larry Tausch said the two were likely dating.
'They were nice students. I saw them walking with each other Friday afternoon prior to me leaving school,' school resource officer Dennis Muntean told Fox 8.
That morning, both Kaufam and Brown had been at a special assembly organized by Principal Tausch to discuss the recent string of student suicides in Stark County, Ohio, and to send the Northwest community a message of hope, reported Ohio.com.
'We’re going to be an example of how to fix this,' Tausch told the 650 students enrolled at Northwest. 'We’re going to get this right.'
According to Tausch, he had known Kaufman from the time she was in middle school and described her as a quiet girl with a big heart. He said Brown had lived in Florida but moved to Ohio this year. The boy was also said to be quiet.
Kaufman's obituary reads that she is survived by her parents and two brothers.
On Saturday, more than 100 students came to the school to meet with grief counselors and provide solace to one another during this difficult time.
'It was shock. I didn’t think it could happen at our schools. We have a very close-knit school; people get along very well,' Muntean said, adding that it was the first major tragedy that has befallen the school in at least five years.
Kaufman and Brown's deaths come just a few days after police say a 13-year-old boy shot himself at a Jackson Township middle school. He died last Wednesday.
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