Buffalo Suspect, Lonely, Isolated—and a Sign of Trouble

Buffalo supermarket shooting suspect Payton Gendron in a jail booking photograph. Erie County District Attorney's Office via AP

CONKLIN, N.Y.—In the waning days of Payton Gendron’s COVID-19-altered senior year at Susquehanna Valley High School, he logged on to a virtual learning program in economics class that asked: “What do you plan to do when you retire?”

“Murder-suicide,” Gendron typed.