Geneva Woman Charged In Thwarted Valentine's Day Plot To Shoot Up Canadian Shopping Mall

Caption: RCMP and Halifax police officials announce charges Saturday afternoon against Geneva woman and Nova Scotia man. | CBC News

A Geneva, IL woman has been named in a thwarted plot to shoot up a suburban shopping mall near Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canadian police authorities announced.

Lindsay Kantha Souvannarath, 23, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. She was arrested early Friday morning by Canadian authorities when she arrived at Halifax Airport on a flight from Chicago.

Her alleged co-conspirator, Randall Steven Shepherd, 20, of Nova Scotia, was also arrested at the airport when he went to meet Souvannarath.

Shepherd, too, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, according to a news advisory on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Facebook page.

“We do not wish to give these individuals further notoriety so will not be referring to their names again,” RCMP said.

Canadian police authorities allege that the Geneva woman and her Nova Scotia companions hatched a fiendish plot to shoot as many people as they could at the Halifax Shopping Centre, before turning the guns on themselves.

Halifax Regional Police reportedly received a tip a few days before through the local Crime Stoppers of a significant weapons-related threat.

The information suggested that a 19-year-old male from the Halifax region and Souvannarath had access to firearms and had intended to open fire and kill citizens at the Halifax Shopping Centre on Saturday when it would be crowded with Valentine’s Day shoppers,” Global News reported.

Following the tip, police authorities in Halifax determined that Shepherd was also involved in the mass shooting plot, RCMP said.

The 19-year-male in suburban Timberlea, NC, reportedly committed suicide early Friday morning, after police surrounded his parents’ home, an unnamed Halifax police official told Associated Press.

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said that police have ruled out terrorism as the motivat behind the foiled massacre.

MacKay referred to the suspects as a “group of murderous misfits.”

Souvannarath and her accomplices had apparently developed an online friendship and were obsessed with death. The group shared pictures of mass murder and death in an online chat room.

A 17-year-old boy from the Halifax area, who was wanted for allegedly threatening to shoot up a high school, was also arrested on Friday. He has since been released without being charged.

The Geneva woman was said to have confessed the mass murder plot to Canadian police, APNewsbreak reported.

Souvannarath is due in Halifax Provincial Court on Tuesday.