Two teenagers charged over a plot to carry out a massacre at a Riverland school have pleaded guilty to a downgraded charge of aggravated threatening life.
The boys — aged 19 and 17 — were expected to stand trial in Adelaide's Supreme Court next week accused of conspiring to murder staff and students at their school between June and November 2017.
But today prosecutors withdrew the conspiring to murder charges and both teens pleaded guilty to the downgraded charges.
In pleading guilty, the teenagers admitted that they threatened to kill or endanger the lives of students and teachers.
They also conceded that they intended to arouse fear that the threat would be carried out.
The teenagers were arrested in November 2017 over their plan to attack the school with guns and explosives before the end of term.
In July last year, lawyers for the two teenagers applied to have the charges thrown out of court, saying their clients were just "talking tough".
The Adelaide Magistrates Court also heard that the two teenagers were "obsessed" with school shootings in the United States, including the infamous Columbine massacre.
Lawyer Greg Mead SC has previously told the court in July that the accused were just "two moody teenagers expressing their dissatisfaction with their lives and the world".
"It was an over-dramatic way of expressing their apparent depressed state of mind," Mr Mead said.
"Is this serious criminal behaviour or is it two youths acting tough?"
Prosecutor Jim Pearce QC had previously told the court the teenagers had formed a suicide pact and were making molotov cocktails and homemade explosive devices.
"The phrase 'we are going to shoot up the school and scare the students', they are talking about taking their own lives, putting a bullet in their brains at the time they're carrying out their plan," he said.
He said a conspiracy to murder charge would be made out of if the prosecution could prove there was a pact between the boys to carry out the offence, even if they later withdrew their plans.
The teens were remanded in custody ahead of a pre-sentencing hearing in April.
