Can Good Works Outweigh Murderous Past?

March 18, 2004 -- Paul Krueger was once a professor at Penn State University's prestigious school of education, admired by students and colleagues.

"I've had students tell me he was one of the best teachers they'd ever had," says Krueger's former immediate supervisor, Kyle Peck.

"There's those teachers that you run across where you just go 'oh, my'. They're just truly gifted," said Mary Beth Morrison, another colleague. "He was one of those teachers."

Krueger's colleagues use the past tense, but he didn't die. What happened was last year, at the pinnacle of his career, after years of a distinguished academic career, a secret from his past caught up with him. The life that Krueger built for himself fell apart.

Krueger shot three men to death when he was 17 years old. When his conviction was revealed to the world, the news effectively ended his career.

"When I look back now … it's like it's a different person," he told Primetime's Charlie Gibson with tears in his eyes.

A Random Act of Violence

Krueger was a troubled kid from a troubled family in California. His path to tragedy began when he fell in with a local boy and they decided to run away together. He packed up the guns he'd been collecting the past few years and stole his mother's car.

They headed eastward. All along, they feared they were going to get caught. So when they got to Texas, outside of Corpus Christi in the Bay area, they rented a small motor boat.

There, the boys came across three men, lifelong friends who were in the midst of a weekend of fishing. The boys were in their boat. They got out and walked up the dock.

And then, Krueger pulled out his guns and out of the blue, for no apparent reason, started firing at the three men. Every one suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Krueger reportedly fired 40 rounds. It was a random act of violence.

"It was a gruesome, gruesome scene," said Detective Manuel Garza, who was first one the scene. "We saw the three fisherman in the water … They were dead.

"One of them had a hole quite big. He was shot with what we call an elephant gun. It's a big bullet and it makes quite a hole. The others were shot with smaller caliber rifle," Garza said. "Worst case I've seen in 35 years at the police department."

Unanswered Questions

The boys fled, and split up. Krueger escaped into Mexico on foot. But his friend was apprehended on a road in Texas, and he told the police everything.

Krueger couldn't live with the guilt either. Two weeks after the killings, he called his mother and a day later Mexican police found him in a little village 145 miles from the border.

He was charged with three counts of murder with malice aforethought. The three widows asked the state of Texas not to pursue the death penalty — they felt it unchristian.

Krueger eventually pled guilty to the crimes. He says afterwards, he was suicidal. He couldn't say then — or now — why he committed such a terrible act.

"That night was very troubling to me, and it's troubling to me right now, to try to recount it," he told Gibson.

For the family members of Krueger's victims though, that night is incomprehensible.

"He never said why he did it. Even today he hasn't said why he did it," said Terry Fox, who was 15 when his father was murdered.

The Path to Atonement

At the age of 18, Krueger entered the penal system, sentenced to three consecutive life terms at the Huntsville prison in Texas.

He expected to live out the rest of his life there. Soon after he got to Huntsville, however he had a life altering experience. He took a class with a faculty member.

Throughout his youth, Krueger had been totally indifferent to learning. When prison confined his body though, he found education could free his mind.

"I was no longer behind prison bars," Krueger said. "So that drove it and something more came out of it."

He earned two college degrees in prison, and had a 4.0 grade point average. And then he started to feel a need to atone for his crimes, he says.

Krueger was eligible for parole but was turned down three times and then, in 1979, after only serving only 13 years, the state of Texas did parole him. At 29 years old, he walked out of prison, a free man

Terry Fox doesn't think Krueger had paid his price to society. "They need to sit there and rot," he says. "That's about a little over four years per man, that he killed."

A Career Cut Short

Outside of prison Paul continued education earning a Master's degree and two doctorates.

Surprisingly, everywhere he went, as a graduate student and later as teacher, no one knew of his background. They didn't ask, and he didn't tell.

"I believe that if someone had found that out, someone on faculty would take exception," he said.

His teaching career blossomed, culminating in a job at Penn State University. A model parolee, Krueger was on annual report status which meant he only needed to tell Texas once a year where he was and what he was doing.

But every day he worried he would be found out. And when parole laws changed, Texas informed Pennsylvania there was a convicted triple murderer living there.

Krueger received a letter telling him he had to leave the state. "All of a sudden I received this letter that's telling me I had two weeks to leave the state … that I was in violation of some statute in Pennsylvania that I didn't know existed," he said.

Krueger applied for another teaching job in California. "It looked like there was going to be a smooth, quiet transition. And then no one would be hurt."

But he never got the chance make the transition. When the news of Krueger's past became public, suddenly the job in California wasn't there anymore. And it became clear he had to leave Penn State. The model teacher was unemployed and unemployable.

Looking for Acceptance

Now Kruegers's days are mostly spent looking for work. And he's not finding any, not even to teach in a prison. He worries about how he will support his family and his former Penn State colleagues feel he's being treated unfairly.

"Before this I would have said rehabilitation works and if you turn your life around, everything will be fine. And education is the key to all of it. And now I'm not sure I can say any of that," said Morrison.

Terry Fox does not feel sorry for Krueger at all. "You can't go through life and not see something that doesn't remind you," he said through tears. "We're traumatized all the time. And he's just now traumatized? No."

Asked if society can ever accept a triple murderer, Krueger replied, "Well, if they know me they can … but this thing you call society, I don't know if they can get to know me."