2017 Eaton Township Weis Markets Shooting

Just before 1 a.m. on June 8, 2017, the Weis Market on Hunter Highway in Eaton Township, near Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, was supposed to be at its quietest. ^[1]

The lights were on but the doors were locked. No customers, just a small overnight crew stocking shelves in a store that normally ran from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. ^[2]

Instead, a 24‑year‑old employee named Randy Robert Stair — who called himself “Andrew Blaze” online — blocked the exits, pulled two pistol‑grip shotguns from a duffel bag, and turned the closed supermarket into a murder‑suicide crime scene. ^[3][4][5]

By the time troopers responded to reports of shots inside the Weis Market, three workers were dead and Stair had killed himself. ^[1][5][6]

The massacre was not spontaneous. It was the endpoint of years of online posting, months of meticulous planning, and days of chilling “suicide tapes” Stair had already pushed onto the internet. ^[5][7]

A Worker Turns on the Night Shift

Randy Stair clocked in for his late‑night shift at around 11 p.m. on Wednesday, June 7, 2017. ^[2][8] The Weis store in rural Wyoming County was closed to shoppers, but employees like Stair stayed overnight to stock shelves. ^[1][2]

In the quiet of that shift, he began transforming the building into a trap.

Investigators later said Stair moved his car to block an emergency exit, then went to his vehicle to retrieve a duffel bag holding two pistol‑grip shotguns. ^[6][8][9] Surveillance and police accounts describe him re‑entering the store and locking the door behind him. ^[6][8]

Sometime after midnight, with exits blocked, he started shooting. ^[6][10]

State police and multiple news outlets reported that Stair fired 59 shotgun rounds inside the supermarket, wrecking merchandise, counters, and fixtures as he moved through the aisles. ^[3][5] Investigators later concluded that all of the rounds appeared to come from one of the two shotguns he brought. ^[8]

He also shot at propane tanks in the store, apparently trying to trigger an explosion. The tanks did not ignite. ^[8]

By the time it ended, three coworkers were dead:

• Terry Lee Sterling, 63, of South Montrose. ^[3][4]
• Victoria Brong, reported as both 25 and 26 in different accounts, of Factoryville. ^[1][2][3]
• Brian Hayes, 47, of Springville. ^[3]

Police and state police consistently described the incident as a murder‑suicide with four dead inside the store: three employees and the shooter. ^[1][2][6]

The One Who Lived

There was one survivor on the overnight shift: 20‑something coworker Kristan Newell. ^[10]

She later told investigators she was wearing headphones and labeling items when she heard a popping sound — then another noise, like something falling. ^[4][10] When she pulled off her headphones and looked, she saw Victoria Brong on the floor and Randy at the end of the aisle. ^[10]

Moving through the store, she saw Terry Sterling at the front of another aisle and watched as Stair came up behind him and fired. ^[10]

According to court and warrant documents, Stair then turned and looked directly at her. ^[4] For reasons she still does not understand, he walked away toward the next aisle instead of shooting. ^[4][10]

That hesitation saved her life.

Newell hid, then escaped the store and called 911, screaming into the phone about an active shooter as the operator struggled to grasp what was happening. ^[4][10] After she fled, she reported hearing more shots from inside. ^[4]

By the time police arrived, Stair was already dead from a self‑inflicted shotgun wound. ^[4][6]

Later, a bomb squad was called to examine his car in the parking lot; nothing additional was found. ^[1][2]

The Victims Behind the Headlines

Terry Lee Sterling, 63

Victoria Brong, mid‑20s

Assistant tag manager Victoria Brong came from nearby Factoryville. ^[2][8] Reports listed her age as both 25 and 26, a small discrepancy that never changed the central fact: she was a young woman at work on a normal night when her life was taken. ^[1][2][3]

Co‑worker and survivor Kristan Newell’s memorial tattoo later included an owl — Brong’s favorite animal — surrounded by colors meant to represent new beginnings and hope. ^[10]

Brian Hayes, 47

Brian Hayes, 47, of Springville, was a U.S. Navy veteran who had served aboard the USS Eisenhower during the Desert Storm era. ^[3][11] He left behind a wife, Tina, and a seven‑year‑old daughter, Caitlin. ^[11]

Randy Stair: From YouTube Kid to “Andrew Blaze”

Randy Robert Stair was born on September 17, 1992, and lived with his parents and brother in Dallas, Pennsylvania, about half an hour from Tunkhannock. ^[8]

By the time of the shooting he had worked at that Weis Market for seven years. ^[5] On paper, he was a long‑tenured grocery employee. Online, he was something very different.

Stair started uploading videos to YouTube as a teenager in 2008, on a channel called PioneersProductions. ^[8] He was known early on for parody videos, then shifted heavily into animation. ^[12]

By 2014 he had launched Ember’s Ghost Squad, a fan‑built series inspired by the Nickelodeon character Ember McLain from Danny Phantom. ^[5] Working under the pseudonym Andrew Blaze, he created female ghost characters, recruited voice actors, and spun out an elaborate fantasy world that lived mainly on YouTube and Twitter. ^[7][8]

He didn’t stay confined to one account. Over time he maintained multiple profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Bandcamp, Instagram, DeviantArt, and a fan wiki, and even created at least nine Twitter accounts in the voices of his Ember’s Ghost Squad characters so they could interact with one another. ^[5]

In writings later found by investigators, Stair said his “true persona” was not Randy at all, but his animated alter ego, Andrew Blaze, and that he had been “planning to die” for more than four years. ^[5]

He also wrote — and told his family in a video — that he felt like “a girl trapped in a man’s body,” and that he saw himself as “a female soul trapped in a man’s body my whole life.” ^[4][7][12] According to his own account, he began cross‑dressing in 2013 and would dress as a woman on Wednesday nights when his parents went bowling, quietly wanting a sex change they never knew about. ^[4]

In the same materials, he described a spiral of depression starting around 2013 and said his head felt like it was “deteriorating from the inside out.” ^[5]

What no one around him seems to have seen clearly was how that private turmoil, his fixation on a cartoon ghost world, and his growing obsession with the Columbine High School shooters were converging into something lethal. Wyoming County District Attorney Jeff Mitchell would later call the Weis massacre “really a mental health situation that utterly spiraled out of control.” ^[4][6]

Worshipping Columbine, Dreaming of Mass Murder

By 2017, the line between fantasy and violence in Randy Stair’s online presence had eroded.

He was a regular in Columbine‑focused forums and wrote admiringly about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. ^[7] On April 20, 2017 — the 18th anniversary of the Columbine attack — he tweeted that Harris and Klebold were “victims too,” and followed it with a defense: admiring Columbine, he wrote, “is not a crime, it’s educational.” ^[7]

A Twitter bio believed to be his read: “I had to die in order to truly live. Speaking from before and beyond the grave.” ^[9]

His posts grew darker and more explicit that spring. On April 17 he tweeted, “By year’s end I’m sure I’ll make my mark. There comes a time in everyone’s life when they need to make a grueling choice; now it’s my turn.” ^[7]

On April 25 he referenced a coin flip that he said would decide something “insanely huge.” ^[7] In later writings, he identified that “insanely huge” decision as choosing to die — and to kill others — at his workplace rather than at home. ^[7]

On May 1, he tweeted that June would be the biggest month of his life and highlighted June 9 as a date to watch. ^[7][8] Weeks later, he was more blunt: on May 31 he announced, “I’m gonna be dead by the end of next week.” ^[7] On June 6 he wrote, “You won’t want to miss this one… It’s going to be historic.” ^[5]

At the same time, he was scripting and recording what he called the “Andrew Blaze Suicide Tapes” — a sprawling archive of videos, documents, and audio files that mapped out his attack in unnerving detail. ^[5][7]

The May 11 Tape: “Nobody Would Suspect a Thing”

Final Messages: Parents, a Voice Actress, and the Internet

The closer he got to June 8, the more Stair’s output accelerated.

In a June 3 iPhone video addressed to his family, he apologized for the phone’s quality — his Canon camera wasn’t working — and told them they couldn’t have seen this coming. ^[5][12] He said that even if they had gotten him help, it “wouldn’t be me,” and that he had worked hard to become “a good liar” so no one would know how depressed he was. ^[5][12]

A handwritten note dated June 5 read, “It’s time for me to go,” adding, “I’m so ready to die. Two more fun nights and that’s it.” ^[7] In the same time frame he wrote that he felt “so close to returning to my spiritual body” and that “the girl in me is clawing to get out.” ^[4][7]

On Wednesday evening, June 7, he tweeted for the last time: “Goodbye humans… I’ll miss you….” ^[7][9][13]

Around that day he shared a file‑hosting folder packed with what one local station described as suicide tapes labeled “The Plan,” “Goodbye Earth,” “Goodbye Parents,” and other videos, including target practice with shotguns and a “grand tour” of the Weis Market where he worked. ^[12] The collection also included a document listing his many social media accounts — almost like a press kit prepared for the post‑massacre media coverage he assumed would come. ^[14]

He also uploaded a 42‑minute animated film depicting a school massacre, tied to his Ember’s Ghost Squad universe, and posted it through a Twitter account believed to be his. ^[4][6] The video, titled “The Westborough High Massacre / Goodbye” in at least one upload, showed him loading shotguns, intercut animation with real footage, and culminated with a montage of black‑and‑white clips of Stair over eight years set to a cover of Adele’s “When We Were Young.” ^[5] Its description read: “This will be my final production and contribution to this world.” ^[5]

Less than an hour before the shootings, Texas‑based voice actress Laura Faverty, who had voiced one of his Ember’s Ghost Squad characters, received an email from him. ^[4][9] She later said it read like a suicide note: it thanked her for her work and told her that by the time she read it, he would be dead. ^[4][9] The email became darker as it went on, she said, outlining “the true purpose” of his videos. ^[4]

At 12:37 a.m. on June 8 — minutes before opening fire — Stair also texted his mother a suicide note while she slept at home in Dallas. ^[8]

By then, the rest of his plan was no longer theoretical. It was only a drive to the store away.

Inside the Weis Market: A Plan Put Into Action

Much of what happened between 12:57 and 1:01 a.m. inside the Weis Market was the grim realization of what Stair had laid out in his May 11 tape. ^[8][14]

Following the Digital Trail

The question facing investigators was no longer who had done this, but why — and whether anyone could or should have seen it coming.

Search‑warrant documents show that police and state police quickly moved on Stair’s home in Dallas, Pennsylvania. ^[4] Inside, they found seven boxes of 12‑gauge ammunition, shooting goggles, ear protectors, a shotgun buttstock, and an owner’s manual. ^[4] They seized two notebooks, drawings, cartoons, hard drives, a flash drive, a computer, and a camera, along with discs labeled “Good Bye,” an “EGS Intro,” and other recordings. ^[4][8]

Investigators said Stair had left behind at least 17 hours of videos, much of it discussing his plans and his intention to die. ^[15] His online archive included suicide tapes, Word documents, and journal entries referencing other massacres and his desire to cross over into the Ember’s Ghost Squad universe after death. ^[7][8]

The Wyoming County district attorney and state police pointed to a Twitter feed and other accounts where Stair had expressed violent, suicidal thoughts and posted the 42‑minute massacre film around the time of the killings. ^[6][9]

At the same time, local residents and former coworkers struggled with another set of questions: who, if anyone, had seen these posts before it was too late?

Prosecutors acknowledged they did not yet know how many followers he had, who had watched his videos, or whether he had effectively created an insular fantasy world that few others ever truly entered. ^[15] One former Weis employee told reporters he was shocked that no family member or friend had stepped forward sooner to raise concerns. ^[15]

In the weeks after the shooting, the presence of Stair’s videos and suicide tapes on mainstream platforms sparked criticism of social‑media companies. VICE noted that YouTube and Twitter left much of his content online for days after being alerted to it, even as Facebook and Instagram removed his accounts more quickly. ^[14] YouTube eventually terminated his channel on June 10 for “multiple or severe violations” of its policy on violence; several of his Twitter accounts, however, were still live at the time of VICE’s reporting. ^[14]

The persistence of his “press kit” of files, endlessly downloadable and re‑uploaded by others, underscored how difficult it is to contain the digital footprint of a mass shooter once it has been deliberately scattered across the web. ^[14]

Grief, Anger, and a Supermarket Caught in the Middle

The massacre shattered a small rural community that could “scarcely afford to lose an employer,” as one county commissioner later put it. ^[3]

By early Thursday afternoon, yellow crime‑scene tape wrapped around the Weis parking lot. Uniformed troopers and investigators moved through the store interior as stunned residents watched from behind the lines. ^[5]

The Shooter’s Family Speaks — Briefly

Stair’s own family found themselves in the crosshairs of public anger and incomprehension.

In a brief statement released the day after the killings, they said their thoughts and prayers were with the victims and their families, adding, “We are so sorry for all the pain and loss of life this has caused everyone involved.” ^[4][15]

His mother, Lori Ann Stair, repeated that sentiment in comments to reporters, but otherwise the family stayed largely out of view as the investigation and media coverage focused on Randy’s online life and mental state. ^[4][9]

Kristan Newell’s Long Road Back

For survivor Kristan Newell, the end of the shooting was not the end of the story.

A Case That Still Defies Easy Answers

Authorities and mental‑health professionals have offered different frameworks for understanding what led a 24‑year‑old grocery worker and animator to barricade a supermarket and murder three colleagues.

The county district attorney has emphasized severe mental illness and a situation that spiraled beyond control. ^[8][15] A psychiatrist quoted in coverage of the case grouped Stair with other young killers who died by suicide and who seemed unable to distinguish between fiction and reality. ^[8] A counselor pointed to the role of his gender dysphoria and perceived lack of understanding from others as a driver of his rage. ^[8]

What is clear is that Stair blended personal despair, an obsessive attachment to a fictional ghost world, explicit admiration for Columbine, and a painstaking operational plan into a single catastrophic event. ^[7][8][14]

Why he spared one coworker while executing three others, and why no one around him managed to interrupt the trajectory of his preparations, remain the questions that haunt Tunkhannock.

In the aisles of the rebuilt Weis Market, people still buy groceries, trade small talk, and go about their lives. But for the workers who were there, and for the families who lost someone that night, June 8, 2017, is a date permanently inked into memory — as indelible as the tattoo on a survivor’s arm. ^[5][10]