A US boy has chatted online with the Finnish teenager, who killed eight and himself dead in a recent high school shooting, about Columbine massacre, the 1999 campus shooting leaving 13 dead in Colorado.

The Philadelphian boy, Dillon Cossey, was "horrified" when hearing about the Finnish attack and said he had never suspected the Finnish teenager of conducting such a violent act, his attorney J. David Farrell said on Monday.

The 14-year-old boy was arrested in October for allegedly preparing an attack at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in suburban Philadelphia.

Farrell said that Cossey remembered he communicated online with the 18-year-old Finnish school shooter, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, about video games and the Columbine massacre.

"Obviously, Columbine was a shared topic of interest," Farrell said.

Auvinen shocked the nation on Wednesday by killing six students, a nurse and the principal in a Tuusula high school before shot himself in the head.

During the investigation of the first campus massacre in the nation, Finnish police seized material from Auvinen's computer, suggesting his link with Cossey. For their part, Pennsylvanian detectives were also running Auvinen's name through the computer seized from Cossey.

Plymouth police officers said that they felt no surprise at Cossey's link with the Finnish school shooter since they had heard before that Cossey contacted other people through Web sites.

In Cossey's own case, he told a friend that he wanted to conduct another Columbine massacre.

Following a tip, Pennsylvanian authorities searched his home in October and found items including a rifle, swords, knives, a bomb-making book and videos of the Columbine massacre.

Later the month, Cossey admitted to three felonies in Montgomery County juvenile court and has since then remained in juvenile custody.

(Xinhua News Agency November 13, 2007)