It started out just like any normal school day. With the clock ticking toward dismissal time on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007, kids were thinking about what they were going to do when class got out or looking ahead to a summer that wasn't that far off.

All that changed in an instant at about 2:38pm, when police received a call about what was first reported as a drowning in the pool at CW Jefferys Collegiate on Sentinel Road. They were prepared for a watery rescue. What they found instead stunned the city.

A young boy, later identified as Jordan Manners, wasn't actually in the water. He was discovered lying in a remote hallway with no vital signs. And it wasn't water that had hurt him. It was a bullet.

A pal named Shane was one of the first to find the gravely wounded youngster. "I came around the corner, and I saw my friend lying on the floor," he recalled through sobs. "And I ran up to him and I tried to help him. But I couldn't do anything.

"He was just shaking."

A science teacher administered CPR until paramedics arrived and took over. They rushed the boy to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, but doctors couldn't save him and he died there a few minutes later.

He was just 15.

There had been fights, stabbings, even shootings in other Toronto schools before, of course. But this was the first time a student had ever been shot to death inside one of the city's institutions of learning. And the fallout from that single gunshot is still reverberating a year later.

The school went into immediate lockdown mode as police began an intense search for the killer. "I have officers on every floor and in every room, and the Emergency Task Force is now in the school in order to insure the safety of all of the students," Chief Bill Blair assured that chaotic afternoon. "We are going through the school to insure that there is no danger presently in the school for those students before we release them."

Student Codiann Batts finally emerged from the protective walls four hours after being trapped inside. "It was really scary actually, just to know that a student got hurt in the school," she recalled. Even her final journey out of the building was eventful. "We left my class and we had to walk in two separate classes because space was cut off. Then we came through the main hall and cafeteria and we were escorted out by police."

It was 6pm by that time, an eternity for the anxious adults who waited nervously outside. At first, none of them knew who the victim was, creating the kind of gnawing worry that only a parent can feel.

Loreen Small was one of those mothers who rushed to the scene waiting for word. When it came, it was gut wrenching.

The mother of Jordan Manners wailed in unbearable grief when authorities told her the victim was her son. She was sped to Sunnybrook to be with her child, and collapsed a second time outside the entrance when the worst news of all became a reality - her child had died in the hospital.

It was a moment so terrible and so poignant that even hardened and veteran cops could be seen wiping away tears in the face of such intense grief.

For those in charge, it was the last straw in a long series of escalating incidents in schools. "I never thought I would have a moment like this in Toronto when the mayor would had to rise and say that a student in a high school in our city has been shot," David Miller grimly informed councillors at City Hall. "None of us want to have to look into eyes of another (parent) in this city and say, 'you have lost your child.'

For students, the news was almost beyond belief.

"I'm so shocked that this could actually happen to him because all my friends ... called me while I was coming home from school," recalled a friend named Nicole. "I don't understand how this could happen to him. He was really quiet."

She remembered Jordan as a boy with no enemies and a teen who wasn't involved with guns or gangs. "I really don't think it [the bullet] was for him because he is a quiet guy. He doesn't really have that many problems ... He has lots of friends. He is not really a person to go off and start cussing someone or anything."

"He was so sweet and so calm and he never did nothing to nobody," another friend added.  "I feel depressed inside and I don't know what to do because he is gone and he's never coming back."

Jordan's aunt, Louise Manners, spoke for the stunned family. And she addressed a message to the killer. "I don't know who you are. I don't know what Jordan did to you but there is no need for you to hurt Jordan," she began as a river of tears streamed down her cheeks. "There is no need for you to kill Jordan."

It would be a few days before the family received word that two arrests had been made in the case. A pair of 17-year-olds are being held in connection with the death.  And while their names can't be released because of their ages, their detentions sparked yet new shock and despair. Both were said to be 'lifelong' friends of the victim.

Classes were cancelled the next two days, as grief counsellors descended on the campus for those who wanted their services. On the Friday after the murder, many students returned to the scene of the terrible crime, holding a solemn candlelight vigil in memory of a boy many didn't even know, but few will ever forget.

To see our original story from the scene, click the video links above.