Alex Hribal

GREENSBURG — A judge has approved moving a 16-year-old boy charged in a high school stabbing rampage to a Pittsburgh-area psychiatric hospital indefinitely after three experts testified he was motivated by the Columbine massacre.

Alex Hribal, of Murrysville, has been held at a juvenile detention center in Westmoreland County since the April 9 attack at Franklin Regional High School.

Hribal's attorney, Patrick Thomassey, has acknowledged the boy stabbed 20 fellow students and a security guard — all of whom have recovered — with two 8-inch kitchen knives he sneaked from home. But Thomassey argued the boy needs serious mental health treatment until he stands trial. Prosecutors maintained he could get the care he needed with an outside doctor coming to the detention center.

Defense psychologist Bruce Chambers testified Hribal planned to attack on April 20, the 15th anniversary of Columbine, but couldn't because school was out that day. Instead, the boy chose April 9, the birthday of Eric Harris, one of two Columbine killers. Hribal told doctors who examined him that he had intense feelings of not fitting in at school, in part because of his smaller, wiry stature; concerns that girls didn't like him; and not getting picked for teams in gym class. The experts testified Hribal struggled with alienation and depression since at least fifth grade, when he held a knife to his chest and considered suicide. He was researching suicide in September when he found an online article about Columbine and began planning his own attack in October.