| Sol Pais | |
| Birth Name: | Sol Leonina Pais |
| Birth Date: | 1 February 2001 |
| Birth Place: | Miami-Dade County, Florida, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Idaho Springs, Colorado, U.S. |
| Death Cause: | Suicide by gunshot |
| Occupation: | Student |
| Known For: | Subject of FBI manhunt in 2019 |
| Relatives: | Gardi Pais (father) |
Sol Leonina Pais (February 1, 2001 – April 15, 2019) was an American student who received national recognition after she became the suspect of a large FBI manhunt in 2019. Pais had flown from Miami to Colorado and purchased a shotgun from a private dealer. After her parents informed authorities that she was missing, she was traced to Colorado. Police recognized Pais as Armed and Dangerous, a BOLO alert was put out, and a large manhunt ensued.
Pais was said to be obsessed with the Columbine high school massacre, and perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. After Pais was reported missing, police discovered her obsession with the massacre. With the 20th anniversary of the massacre about a week away, and Pais purchasing a shotgun in Colorado, police came to believe she was planning a second massacre around April 20. On April 15, she committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, before the manhunt began. Her body was found on April 17.
Sol Pais was born on February 1, 2001, in Miami-Dade County, Florida to Argentine parents hailing from Buenos Aires. Her father, Gardi, is a musician. According to other students at Miami Beach Senior High School, Pais was very quiet and high-achieving academically.[1] Pais was taking Honors English and Advanced Placement Studio Art classes and "did not strike classmates or teachers as deeply troubled".
According to another student who shared a class with Pais, “I didn’t believe it – I didn’t understand it. She’s so quiet. How could someone so quiet be like that?”. Other students also described Pais as keeping mostly to herself, wearing baggy T-shirts, jeans and boots and, often, earphones as she listened to music. She was reportedly a fan of KMFDM, owning both a KMFDM phone case and shirt. One of the Columbine shooters Eric Harris was also a fan of the group.
Pais kept a personal journal online for months prior to the suicide. In it, she describes herself as "the face of loneliness and misery, of isolation and anger, of exhaustion and anxiety, of anguish and grace."[2] In an entry from July 2018, she wrote “I wish I could get a gun by the end of the summer". The journal also included drawings of firearms and a bloody knife, and a mention of dreaming about a shotgun.[3] Pais appeared to have stopped writing journal entries in November 2018, but resumed in February 2019, in which she wrote, “The last few days have been especially painful and tumultuous, which kickstarted me again to start reviving my plans and getting on with them,”. The last journal entry is dated March 30, 2019.
Pais used the handle "Dissolved Girl" online to post her journal, and posted several times on the National Gun Forum, asking about how to acquire a shotgun in Colorado while living in Florida.[4] Pais received several answers on the forum and thanked other users on the forum. Pais was able to purchase a shotgun in Colorado from a private seller.
Pais was last seen in Florida on Sunday, April 14, 2019, at around 10pm local time by her mother. Pais left for school at approximately 6:15 a.m. on Monday, April 15, and texted approximately 15 minutes later to tell her mother that she "was going to attend an art history review after school".[5] Pais had actually bought three one-way tickets from Miami International Airport to Denver, Colorado. After arriving in Colorado, Pais bought a Pump-action shotgun and ammunition from a dealer she had previously been in contact with.[6] [7]
On April 16, the captain of the Miami Beach Police Department alerted agents with the FBI field office in Miami about a "potential school shooter who is infatuated with Columbine shooter Eric Harris".[5] Shortly after Pais was reported missing, investigators gained access to Pais' email, which revealed information for the gun sellers Pais had contacted in Florida. The FBI contacted Pais' Uber driver, who described Pais as cheerful and fluent in Spanish, and had "travelled to Colorado for recreation and was excited to see snow".
At this point, the FBI decided to alert the public due to the danger of a copycat 20th anniversary shooting around April 20 at or near Columbine High School, although April 20 that year was a Saturday. After the manhunt became public, it quickly made national headlines, and hundreds of people called the FBI claiming they had seen Pais panhandling, buying a gun or actually outside of Columbine High School.[5] Columbine High School went on lockdown on the afternoon of April 16, and was dismissed normally at the end of the day. With the FBI finding no trace of Pais by the end of the day, Columbine and several dozen schools closed for the day, keeping more than 500,000 students across the state home.
According to Pais' autopsy, however, Pais was already deceased before the manhunt even started on April 15. She had taken about a 40-minute Uber ride from the Denver International Airport to a mall, and then purchased a shotgun and ammunition from the dealer she had been in contact with previously, before taking another Uber ride from the gun shop "into the mountains" near Mount Evans. According to this Uber driver, Pais "had no food or water and only minimal clothing," and had a "green rifle case" with a "bird hunting gun". Pais apparently committed suicide by gunshot to the head later that night.[8]
The FBI confirmed in a tweet[9] on April 17 that Pais had been discovered deceased in the mountains, claiming that "there is no longer a threat to the community." After Pais was confirmed to be deceased, school operations largely returned to normal in the Jefferson County and Colorado area. Sheriff Jeff Shrader stated, "We want our schools to be a safe place for kids to learn and where they can be productive. And that's why we took this threat seriously". An audit by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General on the incident was conducted after pressure from lawmakers, which suggested upgrades to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).[10] [11] In 2021, the FBI agreed to implement changes in their system.[12] In 2024, state lawmaker Tom Sullivan raised the case of Pais to argue for a mandatory waiting period for Colorado gun buyers.[13]