Okeechobee High School alum Henry Horton IV held at Palm Beach County jail on $1 million bond

Henry Joseph Horton IV, 19, of Okeechobee, Okeechobee County, Florida, United States had plans for mass killings at multiple locations including Okeechobee High School in Okeechobee and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Broward County, Florida. He has a handwritten manifesto that detailed these plans.

On February 14, 2018, Florida native Nikolas Cruz, then 19, fatally shot 17 people and wounded 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. On May 27, 2022, Horton graduated from Okeechobee High School.

On September 11, 2023, Horton’s white pickup truck was spotted at a church near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. At 9:27 p.m. on September 19, 2023, he was driving the same truck and was on his way to the El Rey church in Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida when he was pulled over in Jupiter, Palm Beach County, Florida by Jupiter Police Department officers because the passenger’s side headlight was out on his truck.

Horton gave the officers consent to a search. The officers found in Horton’s truck three filet knives, a bong with burnt residue and handwritten papers with plans to purchase guns and then “kill everyone” at Okeechobee High School with them.

After agreeing to speak to the officers with a lawyer, Horton said that on his 22nd birthday on January 2, 2026, he would kill 15 people at the school, go on a stabbing spree at a church in Miami and be killed by police afterward. Under Florida’s Baker Act, the officers took him to JFK North Hospital in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County for a mental health evaluation.

This guy (Henry Horton IV, 19) could buy as many assault rifles as he wants in Florida.

He was planning a mass shooting to kill 15 people at Okeechobee High, his former school.

He was a “good guy” until he went bad. pic.twitter.com/MHDk7FRC9F

— K-12 School Shooting Database (@K12ssdb) October 7, 2023

On October 5, 2023, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office detectives arrested Horton. He was charged with written threats to kill or do harm and booked into the Palm Beach County Jail in West Palm Beach.

Bond for Horton was set at $1 million and he will be placed on house arrest with a monitor should he be released. At 10:30 a.m. on November 6, 2023, he will be back in court.

Horton was born in Okeechobee to Henry Horton III and Marcie Horton. Henry III lives in Virginia, USA.