As she was being inducted, she faced harassment from other members of her platoon, who assumed she was a lesbian; they set her up on a prank date and made her the target of many jokes thereafter.

[5] She was discharged from the Army after two months because of her unusual behavior, which included sitting fully dressed in green fatigues at the spa and sauna of her fitness club.

[6] Seegrist's behavior was so disconcerting that clerks at a local K-Mart told her they had no rifles in stock when she tried to purchase one from them.

Seegrist alighted from her vehicle, a Datsun B-210, retrieved the weapon she had purchased, and then fired at a man approximately 30 yards (27 m) from where she stood.

Before entering the mall, she shot and killed two-year-old Recife Cosmen who was with his parents waiting to eat at a local restaurant.

Though many customers fled when they heard the gunfire, she came across (Ernest) Earl Trout, who either could not or did not hear it and was simply standing in front of a store where he became one of the three people killed that day.

Seegrist's actions helped spur the state government to form a legislative task force, in order to address better ways to care for the mentally ill in the community.

[citation needed] In response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Seegrist's mother Ruth told The Philly Post:[18] You know, it's ironic that people who are irrational are expected under the law to get help on their own.

We've gone from one extreme to the other.At the time of the shootings, gun buyers were required to sign a paper application declaring they had no record of being in a mental institution.

Her mother is not sure what medication she is taking now, but around 1997, Sylvia made a decision to stop any contact with her family members.

[needs update][21] Sylvia Seegrist's precursor to the shooting was due to her fear that her mother was trying hard to have her sent to a mental care facility again.

Ruth Seegrist said she had seen A Beautiful Mind, a 2001 biographical drama film about John Nash, a Princeton math professor and Nobel laureate who also was schizophrenic.