Attorney: Pa. teen chatted online with Finnish school shooter

PHILADELPHIA -- A teenager who admitted plotting a school attack near Philadelphia had communicated online about the Columbine massacre with a teenage outcast who killed eight people and himself in a high school shooting in Finland, the Pennsylvania boy's attorney said Monday.

But the teen was "horrified" when he found out about the Finnish attack and said he never would have suspected him of following through with a violent act, the attorney said.

Finnish police said material seized from the computer of Pekka-Eric Auvinen suggests the 18-year-old had communicated online with Dillon Cossey, 14, who was arrested in October on suspicion of preparing an attack at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in suburban Philadelphia. The attack never took place.

The two met through the YouTube video-sharing site, Farrell said. They also exchanged posts on a Web site dedicated to the Columbine killers, traded e-mails and likely chatted on certain Web sites, he said.

Detectives were running the name of the Finnish shooter through the computer seized from Cossey, who admitted in juvenile court to planning an attack.

Tipped off by a boy Cossey tried to recruit, Pennsylvania authorities searched his home last month. They found a rifle, about 30 air-powered guns modeled to look like higher-powered weapons, swords, knives, a bomb-making book, videos of the 1999 Columbine attack and violence-filled notebooks.

Montgomery County prosecutor Bruce Castor said he plans to announce today what investigators have culled from Cossey's computer.

Two weeks after his arrest, Cossey admitted to three felonies -- criminal solicitation, risking a catastrophe and possession of an instrument of crime -- in Montgomery County Juvenile Court. He is now in juvenile custody, where he could remain for up to six-and-a-half years.