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On the morning of Friday, May 20, 1988, the quiet & virtually crime-free suburb of Winnetka, Illinois was doing what it always did. Parents were dropping their kids off at school before heading off to work themselves. Coffee was brewing & lawns were being tended to in the place where neighbors knew one another & violent crime seemed like something that happened somewhere else & to someone else.
However, the illusion of safety shattered when a 30-year-old woman from a wealthy family decided to go on a
murderous spree, shooting six students at the Hubbard Woods Elementary School, killing 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin & critically injuring five others.
Today’s case isn’t just about a shooting, but it highlights the signs that were missed & a system that failed to act. There were a trail of red flags that, in hindsight, seemed impossible to ignore. This is the story of Laurie Dann & the day that residents of Winnetka’s illusion of safety was forever changed.
Laurie Dann was born Laurie Wasserman on October 18, 1957 as the second child to parents 27-year-old Edith Joy & 28-year-old Norman Wasserman. At the time of her birth, her brother was 5-years-old & they lived in Pill Hill, a neighborhood in the Calumet Heights community on the South Side of Chicago. When she was 7-years-old, they moved to a large brick tri-level home in Highland Park on the North Shore.
During her time in elementary school & middle school, her classmates remember Laurie as quiet & unremarkable & indicated that she didn’t seem to have any close friends, but she was an amazing speller. One classmate described her as very, very quiet, someone who would say nothing after she was greeted with a hello.
When Laurie was in elementary school, her parents paid to have her ears pinned back & later paid for her nose job.
While she attended Red Oak Junior High, Laurie maintained good grades & as she entered high school, she attended two different schools, eventually transitioning to New Trier East High School in the affluent area of Winnetka. Here the current mean household income is $457,000 while the median home value is often listed well above $1 million.
Not only is Winnetka consistently ranked among the wealthiest suburbs in the United States, but it might be most notably known for the town where the Home Alone house is located at 671 Lincoln Avenue.
However, what a lot of people might not know is that rather than filming inside the home, much of the movie was actually filmed on a constructed set inside the gym at New Trier Township High School after it closed due to declining enrollment in 1981. The home at 671 Lincoln Avenue was used for the iconic exterior, the staircase & the front entry since the home was too small to fit the production crew & their equipment.
The 9,126 square foot, 5-bedroom, 6-bathroom home sold for $5.5 million in January 2025 after undergoing a complete overhaul, leaving the interior of the home virtually unrecognizable from scenes depicted in the 1990 classic holiday movie. Rather than a spooky basement where Kevin McCallister once confronted his fears while doing laundry, the renovated home not only houses a basketball court, but also a movie theater, a wet-bar & a fully-equipped gym.
Laurie’s father, Norman Wasserman had built a successful accounting business & he loved to spend his free time traveling, playing tennis, jogging & taking care of his family. Although he & Edith never hesitated in showering their only daughter with gifts, there were very little outward displays of affection shared amongst the family & Laurie struggled to voice her love for her parents.
During her time in high school, Laurie had only a few girlfriends that carried on past school, but she was definitely popular with the boys. She attended junior prom at the Orrington Hotel in Evanston & she & her date continued their relationship for about a month.
Her female classmates couldn’t help but notice that Laurie seemed to have an unhealthy attachment to boys & they frequently saw her draped over a boy, clingy & always in a relationship.
In the fall of 1976. Laurie started college at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa with an education major. One year later, she transferred to the University of Arizona in Tucson as a liberal arts major where she pledged the Alpha Delta Pi sorority.
During this time, she was a C student & her former sorority sister recalls that her main focus was on men & getting dates. It wasn’t uncommon that she scheduled several dates with various men over the course of an evening & she would cancel one at the last minute to keep the date with the guy she really had her eye on.
Despite being involved in a sorority, her Alpha Delta Pi sisters indicated that she wasn’t particularly social or fun to be around since she complained a lot.
During that summer, Laurie took a home economics course at the University of Wisconsin at Madison & when she returned to Tucson in the fall of 1977, she changed her major to home economics. An ex-boyfriend she was dating at the time indicated that their relationship ended as he was preparing to enter medical school. He felt that although she was possesive & jealous of other women, she never seemed overtly odd.
During the summer of 1980, Laurie left Arizona & returned home to the North Shore of Illinois where she quickly started a new romance with Russell Dann, a man she met at a bar. Russell grew up in Highland Park & was moving up the ranks within his family’s business, Dann Brothers Insurance Co in Northbrook.
Russell was described as an all-American boy who was outgoing, always surrounded by friends, well-liked, an outstanding skier & a champion tennis player. Nine months after meeting, Laurie & Russell were engaged at the Wasserman’s Boca Raton, Florida home.
The couple were married in a small ceremony in Northbrook on September 11, 1982 when Russell was 26 & Laurie was one month shy of 25. By this point, she had enrolled in & withdrawn from six courses at Northwestern University’s continuing education program. Because Russell was earning a six-figure salary that was only a fraction of his net worth, Laurie didn’t need to work. However, when applying for jobs, she was deceptive, writing that she had graduated from the University of Arizona & had worked at Dann Brothers.
While they were dating & newly married, Russell began noticing some behaviors in Laurie that he initially chalked up to superstitions. While they were stopped at a stoplight, Laurie would often open the door & tap her foot on the pavement. She also tip-toed around the carpet in her parent’s Boca Raton home & refused to close all of the cabinets in the kitchen.
On top of his accounting business, Laurie’s father was also part-owner of a clothing store & although he provided her with a plethora of new clothing, rather than wearing these items, they always ended up in a messy heap on the closet floor. Instead, Laurie was said to dress sloppily, she slept much of the day & Russell found that his wife seemed to be dependent & helpless.
Russell tried very hard to make things work & promised he would spend whatever amount it took for her to be well as she began seeing a psychiatrist. However, by March 1984, Laurie was refusing help & a letter from her psychiatrist on March 12 pleaded with her to continue psychotherapy. It also warned Laurie that she could not solely rely on her prescribed medications to fix her problems.
In 1985, Laurie & Russell purchased a five-bedroom home in Highland Park, but they separated later that same year. Russell’s father, Armand, gave Norman Wasserman a deadline for them to come to a friendly divorce agreement. One day before the deadline in January 1986, Laurie filed for dissolution of marriage after she told her lawyer that she had hoped to drag the divorce proceedings on for the next 2-3 years.
According to a friend, Laurie once told Russell, If I can’t have you, nobody can. She also said that her marriage was the only thing she had & the only thing she wanted.
During a hearing in June 1986, although her lawyer alleged that Russell had beaten his wife during their marriage as well as their separation, there was no evidence that proved this to be true.
In the meantime, Laurie’s ex-boyfriend from Tucson, who was now working as a doctor, began receiving harassing phone calls.
On May 10, 1986, Laurie entered the Marksman gunshop in Glenview where the clerk recalls her acting flirtatiously. It was here that she purchased a .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum, something she told her parents that she needed for her own protection. After Russell was told that his now estranged wife was armed, he notified the police, but when Mr. & Mrs. Wasserman were contacted by Glencoe police, they assured them that the gun would be kept in a deposit box.
In August, Laurie met John Childs, a man who lived only two houses away, while she was at Glencoe Beach. During their month-long relationship, he noticed that she would open doors & pick up silverware using her sleeves while his mom noticed how often she washed her hands. She also didn’t like to be touched & said she was fearful of her estranged husband.
Moving forward to September 30, 1986, while Russell Dann was asleep in his apartment, someone snuck inside & stabbed him in the chest with an ice pick, puncturing his lung. Although he told the police that he hadn’t seen the intruder, a hardware store employee recalled Laurie purchasing an ice pick & a receipt for the purchase was found in her home. However, Russell indicated that after he failed a lie detector test & Laurie passed one, no charges were filed.
When Russell spoke with the media, he claimed that Laurie had admitted to stabbing him. Shortly thereafter, his family & friends began receiving harassing late-night phone calls that they highly suspected Laurie was responsible for. The calls began as a hang-up & despite the fact that they were made to a woman that Russell was dating & eventually traced to the Wasserman’s home in Glencoe, charges were later dropped after Laurie was arrested by the Highland Park police in November 1986. While the police report stated, Victim (meaning Russell’s girlfriend) believes suspect is 10-96, police code for a mental patient, Lake County prosecutors cited lack of concrete evidence.
In January 1987, as Russell & Laurie proceeded toward divorce, they intended to split the money from the sale of their home, which was valued at about $250,000 (worth over $713,000 in 2026). Russell would also pay Laurie $1,250/month for 36 months ($3,566 in 2026).
It was about this time that the harassing phone calls slowed down, but by March of that year, Russell’s friends sought help from the Lake County state’s attorney, indicating that Laurie had called them 2-3 times per night, five nights in a row.
The divorce was finalized on April 27, 1987 but in May, she accused Russell of sexually assaulting her. After hair samples were taken from Russell, prosecutors decided not to pursue the case.
That summer, Laurie, who was nearly 30-years-old, sublet an apartment from a student at the Kellogg Living Learning Center at Northwestern in Evanston & soon became the suspect of thefts within the building. She was also accused of several disruptive incidents, one that included meat being left under the cushions of chairs & couches in the lounges.
Right around this time, Laurie, who always wanted to have a child, began advertising for her babysitting services, posting hand-written notices on bulletin boards around town. Although some families that she ended up working for along the North Shore in 1987 said that she had been near-perfect, others accused her of being a thief, a vandalizer & a liar. However, each family had admitted that she had been good with their children.
While her childlike quality helped her to connect with the children, she was highly uneasy with adults.
While spending time in these homes, Laurie was accused of putting used, dirty dishes back into drawers & cabinets without washing them, stealing food & defacing property. She also dressed sloppily & had very strong body odor.
After Northwestern University made attempts to evict Laurie, with her father’s help, she moved out on September 7 & when her apartment was later inspected, officials found urine-stained floors & rancid meat on the counters. She was found five blocks away, sleeping in her car, something the investigator claimed wasn’t unusual.
Because of her concerning behavior, a Glencoe public safety director reached an agreement with Norman Wasserman in October that Laurie stop seeking out new babysitting positions & only remain with the families who liked her.
On November 7, 1987 she returned to the gun shop & purchased a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson & on December 29, she purchased a semiautomatic Beretta.
Police believe she then moved to Madison, Wisconsin sometime between November 1987 & January 1988, moving into the Towers, off-campus student housing, where she lived with students who were more than 12 years her junior. Residents came to naming Laurie the elevator woman because she rode the elevator for extended periods both day & night.
While she seemed to be gaining weight, some students believed that Laurie was bulimic. Most days she was seen wearing gray sweatsuits, she had greasy hair & she was suspected of stealing from other students.
After an appointment with a university psychiatrist, she was prescribed lithium carbonate for manic depression. She was also started on an experimental drug, clomipramine, to control OCD, but she stopped her visits in March.
On March 12, Laurie was reportedly seen at a lab at the University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics Building where three days later, a quantity of arsenic & lead were reported stolen.
Two days later, Laurie was arrested on March 14 & charged with shoplifting four wigs & two hair clips from JC Penney in Madison. After she told officials that she was a University of Arizona student, she gave her address for the home she once shared with Russell & listed her weight as 130# which was 33# more than what her driver’s license indicated.
As May 1988 rolled around, more threatening phone calls came through, including a call to her Tucson ex-boyfriend on May 9 when she threatened to stab him & his children in a voice that resembled the Wicked Witch of the West.
Arizona prosecutors planned to indict Laurie on May 18 for the stabbing threat, but instead, they decided to bring multiple charges in Madison in hopes of having her held without bail over the death threats against various people.
On May 15, a time when the university was quiet after many students had returned home for the summer, a staff member at the Towers found Laurie in a 5th floor garbage room curled up in the fetal position, dripping with sweat in the corner of the room with a plastic bag pulled over her head.
Police believe she left Madison at 4 am on May 16.
Four days later, on Friday, May 20, 1988 Laurie left her home in Glencoe in a luxury Toyota; she was armed with the three guns from Marksman as well as packages of food that had been laced with arsenic. She delivered the poisoned food to two fraternities on Northwestern’s campus as well as her babysitting clients & other people she was acquainted with. Meanwhile, Russell & her psychiatrist received packages of tainted juice in the mail.
At about 9 am, she stopped by the Winnetka home of Padraig & Marian Rushe, her former babysitting clients who had told her earlier that week that they were moving to New York. After she picked up two of their youngest children, rather than taking them to the fair she promised them, she drove to Ravinia Elementary School in Highland Park where her former sister-in-law, Susan Taylor’s, son was enrolled.
After leaving the two boys in the car, she entered the school & started a small fire in one of the corridors that was quickly extinguished by a teacher after Laurie had already left the school. From there, she drove to a Jewish daycare center where Susan’s daughter attended, but when she tried to enter the building with a can of gasoline, she was stopped, but she did leave behind a Mickey Mouse cup that had been laced with poison.
Laurie then drove the two children back to their home at about 10:15 am, took them down to the basement & when the mother came down to check on them, Laurie had set the basement stairwell on fire & fled from the home. The mother & her two children were thankfully able to escape to safety through a basement window.
While firefighters extinguished the fire at the Rushe home, Laurie was already on her way to Hubbard Woods Elementary school in Winnetka where Susan’s third child went to school, but had been away on a field trip that day. Once inside, she encountered a 6-year-old boy in the hallway, Robert Trossman, who she pushed into a nearby restroom & shot in the chest with her Beretta pistol. After he was transferred to Evanston Hospital, he thankfully recovered. She attempted to shoot two other boys with her Smith & Wesson revolver, but when her gun jammed, they ran for help & she threw the weapon into the trash along with its spare ammunition.
Laurie then walked into a second grade classroom where 24 children had been working in groups on a bicycle safety test. Armed with two handguns, she told the substitute teacher, 29-year-old Amy Moses, to gather all of the children into the corner, but when Amy refused & attempted to disarm Laurie, she pulled out a handgun & opened fire. According to Winnetka Police Chief Herbert Timm, had Amy followed her instructions, all of the children may have been shot.
Tragically, five of the children were struck & while four were alive, but wounded, 8-year-old Nick Corwin sadly died from a single shot to the heart after he was taken to nearby Highland Park Hospital.
The other four children were taken to Evanston Hospital in critical condition, each with a single gunshot to their body. 8-year-old Lindsay Clark Fisher had arrived with such little blood that the doctors immediately performed a relatively rare blood transfusion directly to her heart. 7-year-old Kathryn Miller & 8-year-old Mark Tebourek, like Robert Trossman, were admitted to the intensive care unit following surgery. Meanwhile, 8-year-old Peter Munro was reported in serious but stable condition at Highland Park Hospital.
After Laurie fled the school in her car, she noticed that police were enroute so she changed her direction, but wasn’t able to leave as roads were closed for a funeral procession. When she attempted to drive in reverse down a nearby street, she crashed into a tree after taking a corner too quickly.
Abandoning her wrecked car, Laurie removed her blood-stained shorts & tied a blue garbage bag around her waist. With her two remaining guns, she walked through the nearby woods & at about 11 am, she came upon a home where the Andrew family lived at 2 Kent Road.
When she let herself inside, she came upon 20-year-old Phil Andrew, who was on his first day home on summer break from the University of Illinois where he was a member of the swim team. Phil was sitting at the kitchen table with his mother when Laurie burst through the door, holding a gun in each hand with a wild look in her eyes.
While she held a gun in each hand, Laurie told them that she had been raped by a man in her car & she’d shot her attacker. She claimed that since the police hadn’t realized that she’d done this in self-defense, they were after her. Completely unaware of the shooting at nearby Hubbard Woods Elementary, Phil tried to assure her that the police would soon understand. He assumed she was refusing to hand over her guns since he was traumatized from her alleged sexual attack.
Mrs. Andrew gave Laurie a pair of her daughter’s pants to wear & while she was putting them on, Phil was able to take the Baretta from her. At his suggestion, Laurie spoke with her mom on the phone, telling her that she’d done something terrible & the police were involved. When Phil took the phone from her, he told Edith about the alleged rape & asked her to come pick her daughter up, but she said she couldn’t because she didn’t have a car.
When Mr. Andrew came home, they all tried to encourage Laurie to relent her remaining gun & when Laurie called her mom a second time & he tried to ask Edith to persuade Laurie to give them the gun, he indicated that Edith seemed disinterested before she remarked that she hoped her daughter would get home safely & then hung up the phone.
It was during this second phone call, 90 minutes after Laurie had come into the Andrew’s home uninvited when she allowed Phil’s parents to leave unharmed. While they went to alert police, Phil attempted to disarm her & Laurie shot him in the chest. He managed to make it out the back door before he collapsed & was rescued by paramedics. He was taken to Highland Park Hospital & he thankfully survived his injuries.
Now left alone in the Andrew home, Laurie maintained a standoff with police for hours. During negotiations, her parents as well as Russell were brought in in an effort for her to surrender. Instead, she went to an upstairs bedroom, placed her .32 revolver into her mouth & pulled the trigger. This is where the assault team found her body at about 7 pm. She wore a University of Arizona medical school t-shirt that was imprinted with a skeleton posed as the Thinker.
The school shooting at Hubbard Woods Elementary was one of the first to be featured for weeks in the 24-hour news cycle in the wake of her rampage & death. There were many questions as to how a woman with an extensive history of mental illness had been able to legally purchase guns. The coverage of this case was so wide that the murder is sometimes referred to as the first school shooting.
Tragically, what seemed unthinkable back in 1988 has become commonplace today with a school shooting now occurring every single week in America. As of December 13, 2025, there had been at least 75 school shootings in the United States in 2025. 43 were on college campuses while 32 happened in K-12 schools. These incidents left at least 31 people dead & more than 100 injured.
According to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, each year, more than 4,300 children & teens are shot & killed while more than 17,000 are shot & wounded. An estimated 3 million children in the US are exposed to shootings each year & firearms are the leading cause of death for children & teens.
During Laurie Dann’s rampage, in addition to killing 8-year-old Nick Corwin, she shot seven others & attempted to shoot two other children before her gun jammed. Each of the seven others who recovered while they & their families received extensive support to help them to cope in the aftermath of the attacks.
More than 1,000 mourners crowded a synagogue in Northfield for Nick Corwin’s funeral which was held later in May. Nick had been born on April 9, 1980 to parents Joel & Linda Corwin in Chicago & he was an athlete who was known for his sportsmanship & abilities.
Many parents within the community began to devote years of their lives to campaigning for gun control policy. Phil Andrews gave interviews about gun control from his hospital bed & later became active in local & state gun control organizations as the executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. When he was shot at 20-years-old, his goals had revolved around being the best swimmer that he could be, but when he recovered, he went on to have a successful career in the FBI.
Sadly, what happened back in May 1988 in the peaceful community of Winnetka was a foreshadowing for things to come as school shootings have tragically become commonplace. Phil Andrew is frustrated that elected officials continue to do nothing to take significant steps in preventing school shootings by keeping guns out of the hands of those who are mentally ill or have a history of violent behavior.
Phil’s focus is on very practical, effective things such as universal background checks that identify red flags that take guns away from dangerous people.
After Laurie’s rampage, her family, distraught over the tragedy, were unwilling to talk to reporters. While Russell Dann made a short appearance on national television, he then quickly disappeared from the public eye. Laurie’s psychiatrist was cooperative with investigators & indicated that she had never made any mention of thoughts of violence.
Laurie’s parents were spending much of their time in Florida & may have been unaware of the mental crisis their daughter had been in.
Laurie left no suicide note behind as it’s likely she hadn’t planned on killing herself that day, but only did so when she found herself cornered.
Today, we can take a moment to remember the lives that were forever changed on May 20, 1988 in Winnetka, Illinois. When 8-year-old Nick Corwin left the safety of his parents & his home that Friday morning, no one could have imagined that he wouldn’t come home safely as he always did.
Before Laurie’s rampage, which could have ended with many more lives lost, there had been a slew of warning signs that had accumulated over the years. She hadn’t come out of nowhere; her behavior had raised alarms & her instability was noticed. Sadly, time & time again, responsibility was passed along, minimized or blatantly ignored until it was too late.
For the families affected, especially the children who survived that day, their trauma didn’t end when police arrived. It followed them into adulthood, into their memories & nightmares & into a life forever divided by before & after. These were real people whose lives were forever changed & the safety they may have previously taken for granted was stolen.
If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help by calling or texting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by simply calling or texting 988.
References:
- Wikipedia: Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego)
- Wikipedia: Pill Hill, Chicago
- Zillow: 671 Lincoln Ave, Winnetka, IL 60093
- World Population Review: Winnetka
- ABC 7 Eyewitness News: Laurie Dann: Timeline of 1988 fires, Winnetka school shooting, standoff
- CBS News: 30 years later, survivor of Laurie Dann laments rise in school shootings
- Everytown Research & Policy: Gunfire on school grounds in the United States
- Chicago Tribune: The many faces of Laurie Dann
- CNN: School shootings in the US: Fast facts
- Los Angeles Times: Teacher stands firm, delivers
- Los Angeles Times: Woman kills boy, wounds 5 at Illinois school; is found dead
- Wikipedia: Murder of Nick Corwin
- Legal Talk Network: The murder of innocence edition: A look back on the Laurie Dann school shooting with Eric Zorn
- 988 Lifeline
