Thaindian News

High School football coach Ed Thomas was fatally shot in the weights’ room of the Aplington-Parkersburg High School by 24-year-old former high school football player Mark Becker today.

Kevin Winker, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation said Becker walked into the room at about 8am Wednesday and shot Thomas several times using a handgun.

Several students from the Parkersburg school, situated about 80 miles (50 kilometers) from Des Moines, were in the room at the time of the shooting, but none were injured.

Winker said Thomas was rushed to nearby Waterloo hospital, where he died. “The people that were present were not threatened in any way.”

Winker said Becker was arrested without incident at a home in rural Parkersburg shortly after authorities received a 911 call about the shooting.

He said he couldn’t discuss what Becker’s motive for the slaying might have been, or what Becker might have been up to in the days prior to the shooting.

He said investigators plan on interviewing students who were in the weights’ room and to look into Becker’s past.

Becker is charged with first-degree murder and is being held in Butler County jail while investigators look at his entire past. Motive is one of those things we’re looking into,” Winker said.

Thomas compiled a career record of 292-84 in 37 seasons as a head coach, 34 of them at Aplington-Parkersburg, and was one of the most well-known high school football coaches in Iowa.

He was honored as the NFL High School Coach of the Year in 2005, and four of his former players are in the NFL: Green Bay’s Aaron Kampman, Jacksonville’s Brad Meester, Detroit’s Jared DeVries and Denver’s Casey Wiegmann.