Unraveling Columbine: Part XIII

Delving into the disturbing minds of the Columbine killers reveals a calculated progression toward violence rather than a sudden snap. Eric Harris, a textbook psychopath, meticulously planned the attack for over a year while manipulating everyone around him with an Oscar-worthy performance of contrition and rehabilitation.

The yearbooks exchanged between Eric and Dylan became repositories of their murderous fantasies – complete with drawings of massacres and X's marked over classmates' photos. This exchange represented a dangerous pact of "mutually assured destruction," as either could have exposed the other. Yet the disturbing reality is that Eric's true intentions were hiding in plain sight, even as he charmed his way through a juvenile diversion program following an arrest for breaking into a van.

While Eric's journal entries revealed his genuine desire for mass destruction, Dylan Klebold appears to have been primarily suicidal rather than homicidal. His private writings focused on finding true love as an escape from his misery, suggesting he viewed their planning sessions as fantasy rather than reality until much closer to the event.

The aftermath rippled through the community in profound ways. When Columbine reopened, students and parents formed a "human shield" to physically block the media from accessing the school. The six-month anniversary brought new threats, heightened anxiety, and culminated in the suicide of a wounded student's mother. For survivors like Patrick Ireland, who was shot in the head, recovery meant not just learning to walk again but confronting the reality that dreams – like his plan to become an architect – might now be impossible due to his injuries.

This detailed examination of the Columbine tragedy challenges simplified narratives about bullying or snap decisions, revealing instead how psychopathy can manifest as a long-term, calculated path toward violence that remains undetected despite multiple warning signs. What makes Eric Harris truly frightening isn't just what he did – but how effectively he convinced everyone around him that he was reformed, remorseful, and ready to rejoin society.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and wecontinue with Unraveling the
Columbine Tragedy.
Let's begin A year before theattack.
The boys settled on the timeand place April 1999 in the
Commons.
That gave Eric time to plan,build his arsenal and convince

(00:24):
his partner it was for real.
Shortly after startingDiversion, eric and Dylan
received their junior yearbooks.
They swapped and filled pageafter page with drawings,
descriptions and rants.
We, the gods, will have so muchfun with NBK.
Dylan wrote in Eric's my wrathfor January's incident will be

(00:45):
godlike, not to mention ourrevenge.
And the commons.
January's incident was theirarrest.
Eric was mad about it too.
January 31st sucks, he wrote inDillon's.
I hate white vans.
The arrest was a critical moment.
The yearbooks confirmedFusilier's tentative conclusion

(01:06):
on the score.
Eventually Fusilier would seeit as the most important event
in Eric's progression to murder.
The arrest was followed inrapid succession by Eric
detonating his first pipe bombs,threatening mass murder on his
website, confiding worse visionsto his journal and settling on

(01:27):
the outlines of his attack.
But Eric was already headedthat way.
He did not snap.
Fusilier saw fallout from thecrime as a celebrant to murder
rather than cause.
Eric was an injustice collector.
The cops judge.
Diversion officers were merelythe latest additions to a

(01:49):
comically comprehensive enemieslist which included Tiger Woods,
every girl who had rejected him, all of Western culture and the
human species.
What was different about thearrest in Agent Fusilier's eyes
was that it was the firstdramatic reign in on the boys'
ability to control their ownlives.

(02:15):
The screws are tightening.
They were juniors in highschool now, a time when personal
freedom expanded faster thanever before.
They had just gotten theirdriver's licenses.
They have jobs with paychecksand their first rush of
disposable income.
Their curfews were gettinglater.
Parental oversight was easing.
Eric was dating.

(02:37):
Their universe of possibilitieswas expanding.
They had suffered setbacksbefore, but those were mild and
short-lived.
This time it was a felony.
A felony for the smallesttrifle.
Some morons' vans saw what Allfreedom was lost.
Eric's 23-year-old was dumpinghim because he was grounded all

(03:01):
the time and could never see her.
He kept working Brenda, but itdidn't look good.
Eric filled Dylan's yearbookwith drawings, swastikas,
robocallers and splatteredbodies.
The dead outnumber the living.
An illustration in the marginsuggested hundreds of tiny

(03:23):
corpses piling up to the horizonuntil they all blended together
in an ocean of human waste.
Eric went through his own book,marking up the faces of kids he
didn't like.
He labeled them worthless, saidthey could die.
Or they would die or just madean X over their pictures.

(03:44):
Or they would die or just madean X over their pictures.
Eric had 2,000 photos to defaceand eventually he got to almost
all of them.
Eric had it in for a couple oftreacherous assholes.
God I can't wait till they die,he wrote in Dylan's book.
I can't taste the blood now.
Psychopaths want to enjoy theirexploits and that's why the

(04:06):
sadistic ones tend to chooseserial killing.
They enjoy the cruelty as itplays out.
Eric went a different route thebig kill which he would relish
in anticipation for a full year.
He loved control.
He couldn't wait to hold livesin his hand.

(04:28):
When his day finally arrived,he took his time in the library
and enjoyed every minute of it.
He killed some kids on a whim,let others go just as easily.
He also used his website toenjoy a certain notoriety in his
lifetime.
One contradiction to Eric'scontrol fetish is apparent in

(04:52):
his willingness to entrust powerto Dylan.
The yearbook exchangerepresented a huge leap of faith
for each of them.
They had been talking aboutmurder for months Now and
corresponding catchphrases inboth journals suggest they had
been riffling on those ideasregularly.
Eric had gone semi-public withthe threats, already posting

(05:18):
them on his website, but no oneseemed to notice or take it
seriously.
This time he scrolled outincriminating evidence of his
plot and his own handwriting andturned it over to Dylan.
They hinted about plants in afew friends' yearbooks, but it
all sounded like jokes.

(05:39):
Dylan said he would like tokill Puff, daddy or Handsome,
while Eric went with irony Don'tfollow your dreams, follow your
animal instincts.
If it moves, kill it.
If it doesn't, burn it.
And then used some Germanphrase that meant numeracy

(06:06):
constantly and a commonshorthand with this for his
favorite band KMFDM.
This was just the kind of movethat delighted.
Eric, warned the world inwriting to show us how stupid we
all are.
In each other's books they tooka real gamble, particularly

(06:35):
Dylan.
He wrote page after page ofspecific murder plans.
They were at each other's mercy.
Now Exposure of the yearbookscould end their participation
and diversion and bring themback on felony charges For the
final year.
Each boy knew his body couldget him imprisoned at any time,
though they would both go downtogether Mutually assured
destruction.

(06:56):
Dr Fusilier considered theiryearbook passages.
Both boys fantasized aboutmurder, but Dylan focused on the
single attack.
Eric had a grander vision.
All his writing alluded to awider slaughter killing

(07:16):
everything, destroying the humanrace.
In a passionate journal entry amonth later, he would cite the
Nazis' final solution Kill themall.
Well, in case you haven'tfigured it out yet, I say killed
mankind.
It's unclear whether Eric andDylan were aware of the

(07:40):
discrepancy neither oneaddressed in it writing
discrepancy, neither oneaddressed in it writing.
It's hard to imagine that Ericfailed to notice Dylan's focus
on a more limited attack.
Was he including Dylan in thefull dream?
Perhaps Dylan just didn't findit plausible Blowing up the high

(08:00):
school?
That could actually happen,killing mankind?
Maybe that just sounded likescience fiction to Dylan.
Despite the press's obsessionwith bullying and misfits,
that's not how the boyspresented themselves.
Dylan laughed about picking onthe new freshmen.
Neither one complained aboutbullies picking up on them.

(08:31):
They boasted about doing itthemselves.
The bullies changeddramatically after they began
diversion and reverseddirections once again.
Eric launched a new charmoffensive.
Andrea Sanchez became thesecond most important person in
his life.
Knowing her was the best way toappease the first, his dad.

(08:55):
It also kept the program fromdiverting Eric from his goal.
Eric had a plan now.
He was on a mission and he wasready.
His grades dropped briefly afterthe arrest but they rebounded
to his best ever once he had hisattack plan.

(09:16):
It was a lot of work, which hecomplained bitterly about in his
journals, but he worked his assoff to excel.
Dylan didn't try to impressanybody, not even Andrea.
He missed appointments, fellbehind in community service, let

(09:38):
his grades plummet he wasactually getting two Ds.
Nbk was nothing but a diversionto Dylan Fantasy chats with his
buddy about what they wouldlike to do.
Dylan didn't believe it.
He didn't plan to go throughwith it.
All he knew was that he was afelon.

(10:00):
Now His miserable life hadgrown pathetically worse.
Eric was the star performer inthe program, at work and at
school.
He even earned a raise and whenschool let out for his first
last summer he got a second jobat Tortilla Wraps where his

(10:22):
buddy named Nate Dyckman worked.
Eric started putting away moremoney to build his arsenal.
His cover story was that he wassaving up for a new computer.
He worked both jobs in additionto the 45 hours of community
service the judge had orderedfor the summer.
That was boring.

(10:44):
Mean your crap like sweepingand picking up trash at a rec
center.
He despised it but pasted on asmile.
It was all for a good cause.
Dylan did not appear tocontribute much to the attack,
financially or otherwise.
He quit blackjack and didn'tbother with a regular job over

(11:08):
the summer.
He just did some yard work fora neighbor.
Eric kept both his employersand the rec supervisors
satisfied.
The boys were required to writeapology letters to the van owner
.
The boys were required to writeapology letters to the van
owner.
Eric's exuded contrition.
He acknowledged he was writingpartly because he had been

(11:30):
ordered to, but mostly becausequote I strongly feel that I owe
you an apology.
End quote.
Eric said he was sorryrepeatedly and outlined his
legal and parental punishmentsso the victim would understand
that he was paying a price forhis actions.

(11:51):
Eric knew exactly what empathylooked like.
His most convincing moment inthe letter came when he put
himself in the owner's position.
If his car had been robbed, hesaid, the sense of invasion
would have haunted him.
It would have been hard for himto drive it again.

(12:12):
Every time he got in the car hewould have pictured someone
rummaging through it.
God, he felt violated.
Just imagining it.
He was so disappointed inhimself.

(12:32):
Fusilier said end quote.
He wrote that strictly foreffect.
That was a completemanipulation.
At almost exact same time hewrote down his real feelings in
his journal.
Isn't America supposed to bethe land of the free?
How come, if I'm free, I can'tdeprive a stupid dumb shit from

(12:56):
his possessions If he leavesthem sitting in the front seat
of his van, out in plain sightand in the middle of nowhere on
a 5-f-ing day night.
Natural selector.
The F you know he was cussingin this entry should be shot,

(13:20):
end quote.
Eric betrayed no signs ofcontempt to Andrea Sanchez.
In her notes she remarked onEric's deep remorse.
Few angry boys can hide theirfeelings or sling the BS so
convincingly.
Habitual liars hate basicallybeing like that or not being

(13:45):
good at that, but notpsychopaths.
That was the best part of theperformance.
Eric's joy came from watchingAndrea and the van owner and
Wayne Harris and everyone whocaught sight of the letter fall
for its ridiculous crap Becauseit was a con.
Eric never complained aboutthose lies, he bragged about

(14:08):
them.
Eric could be a procrastinator acommon affliction among
psychopaths and Andrea suggestedhe work on time management.
So Eric bought a Rebel Prideday planner, filled a week in
and brought it in his biweeklycounseling session to show off.

(14:29):
He gushed about what a greatidea it was.
It was really helping, he said,and Andrea was impressed.
She praised him for it in hisfile.
Then he quit.
He used the book to vent hisreal feelings.

(14:51):
It had come packed withmotivational slogans and tips
for better living.
Andrea Sanchez was delightedwith Eric.
She worked with the boysdirectly for a few months and
then transitioned them over to anew counselor.
In Eric's file, andrea endedher last entry with quote muy

(15:12):
facil hombre.
That's sort of not a correctSpanish to just say this is easy
man.
And Dylan got no affectionatesign off.
And why wouldn't?
And Andrea Sanchez liked Ericmore because everyone did.

(15:33):
He was funny and clever andthat smile.
He knew just what went to flashit to Just how long to hang
back, tease you with it, makeyou work for it and then lay on
it or lay it on.

(15:54):
Dylan, on the other hand, was agloom factory.
The misery was so fulfilling.
The misery was so fulfilling.
Who wanted to hang around underthat cloud all day?
Inside he was a dynamo of wildenergy, hurling in eight
directions at once, jammingmusic in his head, thinking

(16:16):
clever thoughts bursting withjoy and sadness and regret and
hope and excitement.
But he was scared to show it.
Dylan kept it behind a veneer.
You could see him silentlysimmering sometimes, but he
mostly came across as sheepishand embarrassed.

(16:38):
Anger was the one thing thatwould boil over sometimes.
Every complaint about hismedication boil over sometimes.
Eric complained about hismedication before he
transitioned from Andrea Sanchez.
He told her that Zoloft wasn'tdoing enough.
He felt restless and couldn'tconcentrate.
Dr Albert switched him to Luvox.

(17:00):
The change required two weeksunmedicated to metabolize the
Soloft out of his system.
Eric told Andrea he was worriedabout going without.
He told a different story tohis journal.
Dr Albert wanted to medicatehim to eradicate bad thoughts
and quell his anger.
He wrote that was craziness.

(17:23):
He would not accept the humanassembly line.
No, no, no, god darn it.
No.
He wrote I will sooner die thanbetray my own thoughts, but
before I leave this worthlessplace I will kill whoever I deem
unfit.
This is a direct quote.

(17:45):
It's not clear exactly whatEric was up with Dr Albert.
He might have actuallycomplained about the Soloft
because it was too effective.
Every patient reactsdifferently.
The maneuver definitelysolidified the facade of Eric
working to control his anger.
Wayne Harris was the hardestperson for Eric to fool.

(18:09):
He has seen Eric's boy scoutacts and it never lasted.
Wayne made one undated entry inhis journal sometime after the
orientation meeting for adiversion in April.
Some time after the orientationmeeting for diversion in April
he was frustrated.
He listed bullet points for alecture for Eric that says

(18:33):
unwilling to control sleephabits, unwilling to control
study habits, unmotivated tosucceed in school, we can deal
with one and two TV, phone,computer lights out, job, social
.
You must deal with three.

(18:53):
Prove to us your desire tosucceed by succeeding showing
good judgment, giving extraeffort, pursuing interest,
seeking help, advice.
So after he wrote that, hedecided to put Eric on
restriction again A 10 o'clockpm curfew except for studying,

(19:20):
no phone during study time andpossibly another four weeks away
from his computer.
The crackdown was the lastentry Wayne Harris would record
and nearly the last words thepublic would get from him.
The search warrant exercised onhis home a year later was
specific to Eric's writings.

(19:40):
Nothing else from Wayne orKathy or Eric's brother was
confiscated.
In the 10 years since theattack they have issued a few
brief statements throughattorneys, met with police
briefly and with parents of thevictims once they have never
spoken to the press.

(20:00):
The outlines of Eric'srelationship to his father came
through in their journals andfrom testimony of outsiders.
Kathy Harris's Mercure and afull picture of the family
dynamic remains elusive.
With Eric, dylan paid lipservice to MBK.

(20:25):
Privately, however, he wasjuggling two options suicide or
true love.
He wrote Harriet a love letterconfessing all.
He wondered if she had aboyfriend.
Odd that he had never checkedthat out.
He hardly saw her anymore.

(20:45):
He realized this might be a bitmuch and he wrote a quote I
know what you're thinking.
Some psycho wrote me thisharassing letter.
But he had to take his chance.
He was sure she had noticed hima few times.

(21:06):
None of her gazes had goneunnoticed.
End quote.
Dylan confessed his scariestintentions, just like Zach who
had found a soulmate in whom toconfide his suicidal desires.
But at first Dylan was a littlecoy.
He wrote, quote I will go awaysoon.

(21:31):
Please don't feel any guiltabout my soon-to-be absence of
this world.
End quote.
Finally, he conceded that shewould hate him if she knew the
whole truth.
But he confessed it anyway.
So he continued writing.

(21:54):
Quote I am a criminal.
I have done things that almostnobody would even think about
condoning.
End quote.
He had been caught for most ofhis crimes, he said, and wanted
a new existence.
He was confident she knew whathe meant.

(22:19):
Suicide Quote he put suicidequestion mark I have nothing to
live for and I won't be able tosurvive in this world after this
legal conviction.
But if she loved him as strongas he loved her, he would find a

(22:44):
way to survive.
If she thought he was crazy,please don't tell anyone.
He pleaded.
Please accept his apologies,but if she felt something for
him too, she should leave a notein his locker, number 837, near
the library.
And then he signed his namenear the library.
And then he signed his name.

(23:06):
He did not deliver it.
Did he ever intend to?
Or was it just for him?
Eric Mingwa was upset.
He lashed out at Brooks Brownby email and said quote I know
you're an enemy of Eric's.
It said I know where you liveand what cars you drive.

(23:30):
Psychopaths do not attempt tofool everyone.
They save their performancesfor people with power over them
or with something they need.
If you saw the ugly side ofEric Harris, you meant nothing
to him.
Brooks told his mom Judy, callthe cops.
A deputy wrote up yet anothersuspicious incident report and

(23:56):
added it to the ongoinginvestigation of Eric.
It said that the Browns wereworried and they requested an
extra patrol.
For the night the threesome wasover.
Zach was not included in NBKand Eric froze him out
completely.
Eric went cold on him thatsummer and Zach said that he'd

(24:18):
never figure out why Openhostilities erupted that fall.
Dylan kept clear of it.
He stayed close to Zach, awayfrom Eric, chatting away by
phone.
Every night Randy Brown calledthe cops again.
Somebody had attacked hisgarage with paintball gum and he

(24:39):
was sure he was the same oldlittle criminal.
Eric Harris, a deputy,interviewed Randy and wrote up a
report and he wrote no suspects, no leads.
His new counselor, bob ChrisHauser, wrote that Eric is doing

(24:59):
well and that Eric wasexceeding expectations and
covering his mistakes.
He got into a bit ofprocrastination jam on his last
four hours of community service.
He waited until the last dayand he wasn't going to get to
complete his full 45 hours.

(25:19):
So he sweet-talked the strangerin charge at the rec center
that day who was impressedenough to lie for him.
As far as Chris Hauser knew,eric completed his service on
time.
Eric used to work for BrowniePoints with a teacher.
That fall he boasted about thesummer he had dedicated to the

(25:41):
community.
The boys continued divergingphilosophically.
Eric held mastery over man andnature.
Dylan was a slave to fate.
And Dylan had a big surprise.
He had no intention ofinflicting Eric's massacre.
He enjoyed the banter butprivately said goodbye.

(26:03):
He enjoyed the banter butprivately said goodbye.
He expected his August 10 entryto be his last.
Dylan was planning to killhimself long before NBK.
So now senior year started forthe killers.
Eric and Dylan began a videoproduction class.

(26:23):
That was fun.
They got to make movies.
The fictional vignettes weremostly variations on the formula
Aloof tough guys protectingmisfits from poking jocks.
Eric and Dylan outwitted thebullies but saved the real
contempt for the clients.
They bled the losersfinancially, then killed them

(26:51):
just because they could.
The victims deserved it.
They were inferior.
The storyline spilled right outof Eric's journal and Eric was
guiding his unsteady partnerfantasy to reality, one step at
a time.
And Dylan ate it up.
He came alive on camera.
His eyes bulged.

(27:12):
You could sense true ragesmoldering beneath his skin.
The boys have rifled on NBK formonths, but now they were
acting out bits on film.
They were celluloid heroes,screening their exploits for
classmates and adults.
And Eric loved that Hilarious,to reveal his plans that way.

(27:36):
He was right in the open andthey still couldn't guess.
And he had Dylan out there withhim.
Eric was gobbling up literatureMacbeth, kinleer, tests of the
Duval bills, he could never getenough Nietzsche or Hobbes.

(27:57):
Once a week he wrote a shortessay for English class on one
of the stories, or sometimes ona random topic.
These essays reached DrFusilier weeks after the murders
.
He found them revealing,particularly for what they
omitted.
In September, eric titled oneof his short essays Is Murder or

(28:23):
Breaking the law ever justified?
Yes, he responded.
In extreme situations hedescribed holding pets and human
hostage, threatened to blow upbusloads of people.
The irony of masking grislymurder fantasies and moralistic
essays amused him.

(28:44):
Asking grisly murder fantasiesand moralistic essays amused him
, a police sniper could savemoney, or should say could save
many, by killing one.
According to Eric, the law mustbend.
Eric made this sense in hisjournal but took it a step
further.
Moral imperatives aresituational, absolutes are

(29:05):
imaginary.
Therefore he could kill anyonehe wanted.
Fusilier saw no moral confusion, clearly no mental illness.
Eric demonstrated his sanity byhis ability to navigate such
tricky, certain terrain and hegot the satisfaction of warning

(29:34):
us in yet another way, withoutgiving himself away.
Dylan expected to be dead soon.
What was the point of school?
He had a light schedule and wasstill pulling two Ds.
He was sleeping in class.
He missed the first calculustest and didn't bother making it
up.
Those grades are not acceptable, and that's what Bob Grishauser

(29:59):
, his diversion officer, toldhim.
You could get them up ASAP ordo his homework at the diversion
office every afternoon.
Kriegshauser was thrilled withEric's progress.
Eric was working on a speechabout foreign music and
memorizing Dr Der Erkoning andI'm probably butchering this

(30:24):
because I don't speak German.
This was an opera, an operaticpoem, and he also had taken a
road trip to Boulder to catch aUniversity of Colorado football
game.
He was making a batch of donutsfor Oktoberfest and soaking up

(30:48):
everything he could find on theNazis.
He poured through books such asthe Nazi Party, secrets of the
SS, the Ideological Origins ofNazi Imperialism.
He cited a dozen scholarlybooks for his paper the Nazi
Culture.
It was a strong piece of workvivid, comprehensive and

(31:11):
detailed.
The paper let Eric indulge indepravity right in the open.
It began by making the readerto imagine a stadium packed with
murdered, men and women andchildren, not just filling the
seats but pile high into the airabove it.

(31:33):
That would still represent justa fraction of the people
exterminated by the Nazis.
He said Six million Jews theydid away with and five million
other besides Eleven million.
Now there was a body count.
Eric fantasized about toppingit.

(31:57):
He described Nazi officerslighting up prisoners and firing
into the first man to see howmany rib cages the bullet could
penetrate.
So the teacher responded bywriting wow, in the margin.
That is scary, incredible.

(32:20):
Eric photocopied a passage fromHeinrich Himmler's infamous
speech to the SS group leadersand kept it in his room.
Eric was feeling rambunctiousand he started wearing t-shirts
with German phrases.
He littered his papers withswastika and he yelled when he

(32:43):
landed a strike at rock and rollFor Eric's buddy, chris Morris.
All the damn Nancy crap waswearing a little thin.
Eric was quoting Hitler.
Um spoken of aboutconcentration camps.
In October Eric faced a setback,a speeding ticket.

(33:06):
His parents were strict and itcost him.
They make him pay for the fine,attend defensive driving cover,
any increase in insurancepremium plus.
He was grounded for three weeks.
All the open nasty lust wasbeginning to paint Eric into a

(33:26):
corner Four days after turninghis paper in, eric confided to
his journal that he was showingtoo much.
He tried a new tactic, recastwhat he had already revealed.
He wrote a deeply personalessay for government class and

(33:48):
turned it into and to Mr Tonelli, who he called a lot of the
students call him T-Dog and Ericadmitted he was a felon, that
he has faced the horror of thepolice station as a criminal.

(34:09):
But he was a changed man.
He had spent four hours incustody and it had been a
nightmare when they put him in aprison-style bathroom.
He had broken down and he saidquote I cry, I hurt and I felt
like hell.
He wrote he was still trying toearn back the respect of his

(34:31):
parents.
He said that was the biggestblow.
Oh, thanks God.
He said he never drank of ordid any drugs.
So in the closing lines he madea classic psychopathic move.

(34:52):
He said personally, I thinkthat whole entire night was
enough punishment for me wasenough punishment for me.
And he wrote this explainingthat it forced him to face a
whole new world of experiences.
So all in all, he concluded, Iguess it was a worthwhile

(35:13):
punishment.
After all, t-dog fell for everymove.
What chance did he have againsta clever young psychopath.
Few teachers even know themeaning of the term.
Dr Fusilier compared the datesof the public and private

(35:34):
confessions just to days betweenthem.
It was remarkable how oftenEric addressed the same ideas in
both venues and how craftily heobscured his true intent.
Months after the attack,following a briefing on the
killers, tonelli went to seeFusilier and he said I think I

(35:58):
have to talk to you.
And he said this.
And Fusilier sat down with him,with Tonelli, and Tonelli was
wracked with guilt and he askedwhat did I miss here?

(36:20):
And Fusilier told him nothing.
Eric was convincing.
He told you exactly what youwanted to hear.
He didn't play innocent.
He confessed to guilt andpleaded for forgiveness.
Civilians always believe a goodpsychopath.
Eric bragged about hisperformances again in his

(36:42):
journal and then took a turn andhe said I would have been a
great Marine.
It would have given me a reasonto be good.
That was unusual for Eric.
He usually reveled in his badchoice, but just for a moment.
He usually reveled in his badchoice, but just for a moment.

(37:04):
There he toyed with the otherroad and he said I would never
drink and drive either.
It would be weird when weactually go to dance to.
Let me try to rephrase this.

(37:27):
He said that he would be weirdnow when we actually go on the
rampage, and that's how he wroteit and quoted Now Dr Fossilier.

(37:49):
He read the passage with onlymild surprise, because even
extreme psychopaths, they canshow flickers of empathy.
Now and then.
Eric was extreme, but notabsolute.
This was the closest he wouldcome to betraying reservations
and it was a logical pass.

(38:10):
The plan was becoming real.
Now Eric finally had the meansto kill.
He felt the power.
He had to make a decision Keepit fantasy or make it real.
Eric's reflection lasted twolines.
The sentences run together asif it was writing rapidly, and

(38:36):
the next one envisioned amassive attack.
And the next one envisioned amassive attack.
He wrote a jumbo ammo cartridgewould be great, just think a
hundred rounds without reloading.
Hell yeah, we'll be right back.

(38:59):
Kathy Arlen had wanted to saveher boy Now she wanted to get
her hands on the kids who didthis to him.
She looked into Patrick's eyes,serene like hers.
Before this horror struck.
Kathy had breathed tranquilityinto her family, but it took all
of her effort to stay calmaround Patrick.

(39:21):
Kathy stood by Patrick's bedand asked if he understood who
had done this to him.
It didn't matter.
He said they were confused.
But forgive them, pleaseforgive them.
And that took Kathy's breathaway, because at first she

(39:43):
assumed that Patrick wasconfused.
But he was not.
He had too much work to do.
He was going to walk again andtalk again like a normal person
and he insisted he would stillbe valedictorian and anger would
eat him up inside and hecouldn't afford this.

(40:05):
And Kathy said okay, she fearedthat it was more than she could
do, but she would try toforgive too.
It would take her years to letgo and she never shook the anger
completely, but she keptlooking to Patrick leading the

(40:27):
way.
Patrick Ireland was struggling.
His days at Crick Hospital thatfirst summer was exhausting.
At night Patrick would liequietly in his room, winding
down before settling off tosleep.
John O'Cathy would stay withhim.
They took turns each night.

(40:48):
They would turn the lights offaround 11 or 12 and just sit
there in the dark with himquietly at first.
Then he would begin to askquestions.
He needed to know everything.
What exactly happened in thelibrary?
How did he respond?
What was going to happen now?

(41:09):
Parents wanted to know aboutthe other victims, or I should
say Patrick wanted to know aboutthe other victims too, and the
killers sometimes.
What could make them dosomething like that?
His speech was returning slowly.

(41:30):
Short-term memory was still astruggle.
Patrick shed his anger towardthe killers early, but his
condition could be infuriating.
Outbursts are typical, withhead wounds.
Anger and frustration commonlylast several months the blue

(41:53):
period they call it.
His therapists were trackingthat as well.
When Patrick shook his fist atthem they were noted in his
chart.
Patrick stayed at CraigHospital for nine and a half
weeks.
He walked out on July 2nd usinga four-armed crutch to support
himself.
He wore a plastic brace on hisright leg.

(42:16):
His doctor sent him home with awheelchair for when he needed
to cover long distances.
A banner signed by friendswelcomed him back.
The summer went quickly.
Patrick wasn't ready for schoolto start.
He was overbooked already withoccupational, physical and

(42:36):
speech therapy andneuropsychology.
They were exhausting days, buthe was walking more steadily.
His speech was prettyintelligible and the extended
process while he searched forwords grew briefer.
A sentence might be interruptedonly once now, or sometimes not

(43:05):
at all.
And the blue period passed.
Four months after the policetape went up, columbine was set
to reopen.
August 16 was the target date.
The atmosphere that morningwould mean everything.
If students came home feelinglike they had made a clean break
over the summer and move on,then they would have.

(43:28):
The first few minutes of thatmorning would set the tone for
the entire year.
Administrators had gatheredstudents, faculty victims and
all the stakeholders andbrainstormed Osama.
They have consultedpsychologists and cultural
anthropologists and griefexperts and had come up with an

(43:49):
elaborate ritual.
It would be called take backthe school For the ceremony to
have impact.
They needed an adversary toovercome, and the more tangible
and odious the adversary thebetter it was, because it was an

(44:11):
easy choice.
The media the Denver Post andRocky Mountain News were still
running Columbine stories everyday, several a day.
As the fall semester began,coverage shot back up 10 stories
a day between the two papersand the national outlets were

(44:32):
back.
How do you feel?
Everyone constantly wanted toknow.
Students started sporting BiteMe t-shirts and quite a few
faculty members did too.
The media had made their liveshell and reporters could be
counted on to appear in recordnumbers.

(44:53):
The rally would include speechesand cheers and rock music and a
ribbon cutting.
Chits and cheers and rock musicand a ribbon cutting.
But the heart of the event wasa public rebuke of the media in
a ceremonial reclaiming of theschool.
From them, thousands of parentsand neighbors would be
recruited to form a human shieldto rebuke the press.

(45:14):
The shield would function bothsymbolically and practically.
It would prevent reporters fromperforming the despicable job.
They literally would not beable to see what was going on.
The rally could have easilybeen planned for inside.

(45:36):
Virtually every school rallywas and this event would be held
outside specifically to stickit to the media.
No doors or locks or wallswould be kept out of the media.
They would be blocked by ahuman wall of shame and the

(45:58):
school would dare them to try tocross it.
Reporters were kept in the darkabout the agenda until seven
days before the rally.
On August 9th, the schoolconvened a media guidelines
summit.
Forty news organizationsattended local and national.

(46:18):
40 news organizations attendedlocal and national.
The invitation was filled withconciliatory phrases like
exchange ideas and balance theinterests.
The district lined up a groupof trauma experts.
A professor outlinedbereavement.

(46:41):
These kids were still in theearly stages and many were
suffering from PTSD.
Mental repetition of the traumatrapped them there.
The TV stations kept recyclingthe same stock footage.
Swat teams, bloody victims,hugging survivors, kids running
out with hands on their heads.

(47:02):
Reporters did not like wherethis was going.
Then victims' advocate RobinFinnegan introduced the larger
idea.
Kids felt as if theiridentities had been stolen.
Columbine was the name of thetragedy.
Now their school was a symbolof mass murder.

(47:27):
They had been cast as bulliesor snotty rich brats.
And there comes a point wherevictims need to have ownership
of their tragedy.
And so far the media owned theColumbine tragedy.

(47:47):
That was about to change.
The district said oh, good luckgetting your precious Columbine
returns Stories.
Administrators outlined the gistof the ceremony.
So a reporter asked what's thehuman chain for?
And district spokesman RickKaufman said To shield the

(48:08):
students from you folk, mostmedia would be excluded.
A small pool would be escortedin.
Reporters were incredulous.
One print reporter the WhiteHouse didn't limit its pool that
tightly.

(48:28):
Reporters for the big nationalpapers huddled in the back of
the room discussing options tolawyer up.
The district wouldn't back down, kaufman said.
In fact, the pool would comeonly with major concessions no
helicopters, no rooftopphotographers and no breach of

(48:50):
school grounds.
If we can't get agreement, thenthere's no pool, he said.
And reporters threatened andsaid try it, it would backfire.
As long as parents understandthat by saying no to everything
again, it's going to be asituation where we are coming

(49:13):
out of rocks and stuff in orderto get sound and pictures.
This is what a TV executivesaid and then additionally added
and I wonder if the parentsreally understand, if they think
they control us by just sayingno, they are really not.
They're forcing us to go inother directions, directions

(49:39):
Kaufman.
The spokesman said his back wasto the wall.
Angry parents had objected toany pull at all and they said
parents and faculty, they havereally hit the wall with you
folks and they're saying we aredone, enough is enough.

(50:02):
Later that week a compromisewas reached.
The pool was expanded slightlyand a bullpen was added within
the shield where interestedstudents could approach cordoned
off reporters.
The press agreed to allprevious demands and two new

(50:22):
ones no kid would be approachedon the way to school that
morning and no photographs ofany of the injured survivors
would be used.
The kids finally felt a sense ofvictory.
Mr D was excited about therally, but he was also worried
about the new kids.

(50:43):
It was a principal's thing.
The incoming freshmen alwayscommanded his thoughts.
This time of year Kids wereeither assimilate quickly or
spend four years struggling tofit in.
The first two weeks were crucial.
Mr D chose to combat the chasmby highlighting it.

(51:03):
He met with the academic andsports teams and the student
senate over the summer and hegave every kid and every teacher
the same mission.
These kids will neverunderstand you, they will never
endure your pain, never bridgethe gap between social classes
that you did.
So help them.

(51:23):
By and large, they went for it.
Kids thought they wereoverwhelmed by their own
struggle, but what they reallyneeded was someone else to look
out for.
They have to solve a differentsort of pain to comprehend how
to hear their own.

(51:45):
Mr D's team brainstormed up aslew of activities to grease the
transition.
The wall tile project seemedlike an easy one.
For three years, kids had beenpainting for inch ceramic tiles.
In our class, 500 had beenplastered above the lockers to
brighten the Columbine corridors.

(52:06):
1,500 new tiles will be addedbefore school resumed,
representing the single mostnoticeable change to the
interior.
Implementing the single mostnoticeable change to the
interior.
For one morning, kids couldexpress their grief or hope or

(52:26):
desires visually and abstractlywithout the intervention of
words.
That wouldn't come.
Brian Fusilier didn't want hisparents standing in the human
shield.
He told his dad, agent Fusilier, the more you do that, the more

(52:50):
you make it unnatural.
Brian was doing okay withtrauma.
He just wanted his life backand his school back the way it
had been.
So his father said that's justnot going to happen.
So Agent Fusilier took Mondaymorning off from the
investigation to join the chainand Mimi stood beside him.

(53:10):
By 7 am kids were streaming inwith the parents.
By 7.30, the shield was 500strong.
It would grow much larger.
The parents applauded eachstudent's arrival.
Most of the kids were matchingwhite T-shirts and blessed with
their rallying cry we are on thefront and Columbine on the back

(53:34):
.
Small contingents have optedfor their own messages.
Small contingents have optedfor their own messages.
Yes, I believe in God.
Or vectors, not victims.
Frank DeAngelis took themicrophone and a group of kids
screamed we love you, mrd.
He teared up at the welcome,then delivered a touching speech

(53:58):
.
He said quote.
He teared up at the welcome,then delivered a touching speech
.
He said quote.
You may be feeling a littleanxious, he said, but you need
to know that you are not alonein this End.
Quote.
The school's American flagswere raised from half-mast for
the first time since April 20th,symbolically ending the period

(54:22):
of mourning.
A ribbon across the entrancewas cut and Patrick Ireland led
the student body in.
We'll be right back.
Milestones were hard.
The first day of school, thefirst Christmas, first anything.

(54:45):
All the early memories, all thefeelings of helplessness
swelled back to the surface.
The six-month anniversary wasunnerving.
Surveillance video of thekillers roaming the cafeteria
had just been leaked to CBS.
The network led its nationalnews broadcast with the first of

(55:05):
footage inside the building.
During the attack, eric andDylan strolled around Brandon
Schindler weapons.
They picked up abandoned cupsfrom the tables and casually
enjoy a few sips.
They shot at the big bombs andterrified kids scurried away.
And it was one thing to hear orread about it and another thing

(55:37):
was to see it.
And Sean Graves' mother saidthat she cried while she watched
and she made herself sitthrough it because she needed to
know Her son took a pass.
Sean did his homework in theother room.
Sean was semi-paralyzed, one ofthe critically injured kids.

(56:01):
Everyone was watching theirprogress.
Anne and Marie Holt-Holter werestruggling.
She went to school for physicsclass and a tutor taught her the
rest at home.
Her family had just moved intoa new house outfitted by
volunteers to accommodate herwheelchair, and Marie was

(56:22):
fighting her way toward walkingagain.
A few days before the six-monthanniversary, she finally moved
her legs, one at a time, threeto four inches high.
It was a tremendous.
It was a tremendous, tremendousachievement, her dad, ted, said

(56:46):
.
But the pain was stillexcruciating.
The six months at UniversityJitters made it harder.
Rumors were rampant.
Eric and Dylan couldn't haveacted alone.
The Trench Coal coat mafia isstill active.
It could strike again at anymoment.

(57:07):
October 20th was the six-monthmark Seemed like the perfect
moment.
On October 18th, a fresh rumorsurfaced.
A friend of Eric and Dylan'swho had worked on their school
videos told someone he was goingto finish the job.
The next day, police raided hishouse, searched the premises

(57:28):
and arrested him.
His parents cooperated.
He was charged with a felonyand held on a $500,000 bond
$500,000 bond.
He was put on a suicide watch.
He was 17.
The kid made a brief appearancein juvenile court on Wednesday

(57:48):
in leg shackles and a greenprison uniform.
He faced Magistrate John DeVita, the same man who had sentenced
Eric and Dylan a year and ahalf earlier.
Because the suspect was a minor.
His name was withheld and therecord sealed.
But DeVita confirmed the policehad found an incriminated
journal.
That was the basis for theallegation he said.

(58:09):
A diagram of the school wasalso recovered but no signs of
activity to carry anything out.
In the 12-page diary the boylamented his failure to help
Eric and Dylan with theirtroubles.
He contemplated suicide.
He wrote about it.
He talked about it when theycame to arrest him.

(58:30):
That same day, their six-monthanniversary, 450 students call
in sick.
Why set foot in that deadlyschool?
More drifted out all day.
By the closing bell half thestudent body was gone.
Three of the critical injuredkids Richard Castaldo and Marie
Hushhalter and Patrick Irelandstuck it out.

(58:53):
Sean Graves stayed home andbaked chocolate chip cookies
with friends.
He said that he didn't want torisk it.
Thursday 14% were still out.
The normal absentee rate was 5%.
The tension subsided On Friday.
Attendance was back near normal.

(59:14):
Anne-marie Holter and her dadwent to Leawood Elementary that
morning to thank fundraisers andaccept donations raised on her
behalf.
Around 10 am Anne-Marie's motherwalked into an Alpha Pawn shop
south of Denver.
She asked to see a handgun.
The clerk offered severaloptions.

(59:35):
She looked at them through theglass case.
She settled on a .38 caliberrevolver.
While he got started on thebackground check she turned her
back to the counter and loaded.
She had brought the ammo withher.
First she fired at the wall andthe second shot entered through

(59:56):
her right temple.
Paramedics rushed Carla June tothe Swedish Medical Center, the
same hospital that had treatedAnne-Marie.
Carla June died a few minuteslater.
A counselor who had worked withthe family came by the house to

(01:00:21):
notify thefamily.
Columbine's mental healthhotline was flooded with calls
on Saturday.
Several distraught messageswere queued up on the machine.
When counselors arrived, theyadded an extra weekend shift.
A Jeffco official said that ithad been a hard week.
They are sad and depressed andthey want to
talk.
Parents had watched their kidssputtering on the brink for

(01:00:46):
months, especially this month,the six-month anniversary.
Other parents had no idea whattheir kids were thinking.
Were they getting thatdesperate too?
Would Carla's choice seem likea way out?
Some kids fought the samethoughts about their parents.
What most people in thecommunity did not know was that

(01:01:10):
Carla was at the end of a longstruggle with mental illness.
The Hoth Hoth family wanted thepublic to understand that.
The whole Holtter family wantedthe public to understand that
After her death they released astatement saying she had been
battling clinical depression forthree
years.
She had been suicidal in thepast.
She had been on medication.

(01:01:32):
A month earlier Ted had calledthe authorities at 3 am to
report her missing.
She walked into a localemergency room the next day
seeking treatment for depression.
She was hospitalized for amonth.
Eight days before her suicideshe was transferred to an

(01:01:53):
outpatient program.
The family revealed later thatCarla had been diagnosed as
bipolar.
Columbine aggravated Carla'sdepression horribly.
She may or may not have goneover the edge without it.
But the Columbine tragedy wasnot the underlying cause.

(01:02:13):
The school suspended the boywho had made the anniversary
threat pending expulsion.
That made eight expulsionproceedings in Jefco since April
for a variety of gun threatsand bomb scares.
Everything was zero tolerance.
Now no one was takingchances.
The boy spent seven weeks injail, though he was there until

(01:02:38):
Thanksgiving.
It was during that period thatthe community learned of his
plan.
He intended to fill his carwith gasoline canisters and plow
into the school as a suicidebomber.
In December he pleaded down totwo minor charges and was
sentenced to a one-year juvenilediversion program, just as Eric

(01:03:00):
and Dylan had been.
Other charges were dropped,including theft.
He had stolen $100 from thevideo store he worked at to run
away to Texas.
He had begun seeing apsychiatrist and taking
medication.
The sentence required both tocontinue.
The prosecutor said quote thisis a troubled young man and he

(01:03:25):
will be getting the help that heneeds.
Endquote.
The half-year anniversary alsobrought a deadline.
Colorado law requires thatanyone who wants to sue a
government agency for negligencemust file an intent notice
within 180 days.
Twenty families filed Noticescame from families of the dead,

(01:03:49):
families of the injured and theKlebolds.
Tom and Sue Klebold chargedStone's department with reckless
, willful and wanton misconduct.
Stone's department withreckless, willful and wanton
misconduct for failing to alertthem about its 1998
investigation into Eric'sbehavior, particularly his death
threats.
That warning would more likelythan not have caused the

(01:04:11):
Klebolds to become aware ofdangers of which they were not
aware and demand that their sonDylan be excluded from all
contacts with Eric Harris.
The filing read the notice saidthe family expected to be sued

(01:04:37):
by victims and sought damagesfrom Jeffco equal to those
eventual settlements.
The Klebolds had cause forconcern.
The two families still toppedmost blame lists.
The filing took the communityby surprise.
No one had heard from theHarris's or Klebolds in
months.
The harshest rebuke came fromSheriff Stone.

(01:05:01):
He said I think it's outrageous.
He said it's their parentingthing, not our fault for the kid
doing this thing.
He also lamented the tragedydegenerating to an ugly stage.
Brian Robach told the clibblesmove and stride.
It surprised him at first, hesaid, but on reflection it seems

(01:05:25):
reasonable.
He directed his outrage atSherry Stone's response.
He says quote we felt that itwas really ugly April 20th.
Brian said ugly April 20th.
Brian said Wayne and Kathyfinally agreed to meet with
investigators without immunityon October 25th.

(01:05:46):
These are the Harris's.
It was a brief session led bySheriff Stone.
There is no record of it beingdocumented in a police
report.
Only two people would becharged with crime Mark Maines,
who had sold the TEC-9, and PhilDuran, who brokered the deal

(01:06:09):
Months earlier.
Agent Fusilier had predictedthat he would be savage, with
both legitimate and displacedanger.
He would be savage with bothlegitimate and displaced anger
and he pretty much said well,these two guys stepped

(01:06:31):
practically in front of afreight train, and he was right.
Mainz was up first.
He called to a plea agreementand was sentenced on November 11
.
It was ugly because ninefamilies spoke at the hearing
and every one of them demandedthe
maximum.
Mainz's lawyer described arough childhood.
His client had gotten introuble, then mended his ways.
Mainz had gotten off drugs,gone to college, obtained a

(01:06:53):
steady job in the computer field.
His character today isexemplary.
He said that infuriated therelatives and one of them says
having that attorney talk abouthow wonderful Mark Mainz is was
tough.
And this was Dave Sanders,whose daughter, connie, was one

(01:07:17):
of the victims.
He said he wasn't misunderstood, he was in the
wrong.
Maine spoke last.
He faced the judge and assuredhim that he had no idea what
Eric and Dylan were planning.
He said I was horrified.
I told my parents I never wantto see a gun for the rest of my

(01:07:38):
life.
There is no way I canadequately explain my sorrow to
the families.
It is something I would regretfor the rest of my life.
Endquote.
Mains was eligible for 18 yearsin prison, but his plea
agreement knocked that down to amaximum of nine.
Judge Henry Nieto said that hehad no choice.

(01:07:59):
The conduct of this defendantwas the first step in what
became an earthquake.
All of us had a moral duty,when we see the potential for
harm, to intervene.
Nine years, but he would assignthem concurrently.
So Mainz would serve his onlysix with parole, maybe as little

(01:08:20):
asthree.
Nero warned the families not toexpect comfort from the
sentence.
Mains looked calm but he tookit hard.
His lawyer put his hand onMains' neck and whispered that
he loved him.
Mains was led away in handcuffs.
The families applauded.
Mains' lawyer described hisclient as a scapegoat.

(01:08:41):
He said there's no one else tobe angry.
Christian martyr Casey Bernardoffered
hope.
In September Misty went on anational book tour.
She said yes, leapt onto theNew York Times bestseller list

(01:09:02):
in its first week.
The Rocky Mountain News editorshad a dilemma.
They knew Cassie had never saidyes.
They had expected to chatterthe myth by now, but they were
still waiting for the sheriff'sreport.
They had to cover the book'srelease.
The editors decided to run twopieces on publication day
affirming CassieSmith.

(01:09:23):
A few weeks later anotherpublication broke the news the
rocky follow-up with EmilyWyant's testimony.
With the story out, emilyagreed to allow her name to be
used.
The renowned publisher lashedout at Emily.
The news made front pages asfar away as London.
Brad and Misty were caught bysurprise.

(01:09:46):
They felt humiliated andbetrayed by Emily, by the cops
and by the secularpress.
The evidence against martyrdomwas overwhelming.
But Casey's youth pastor sawstronger forces at play.
Reverend Dave McPherson said,quote the church is going to

(01:10:08):
stick to the martyr story.
You can say it didn't happenthat way, but the church won't
accept it.
End quote.
He didn't mean just his church,he meant the vast evangelical
community worldwide and to alarge extent he was right.
Book sales continued briskly.
A vast array of websites sprangup to defend the story.

(01:10:33):
Others just repeated it withouteven mentioning that it had
beendebunked.
Jeffco also faced a series ofembarrassing leaks.
Investigators had let the videoget loose to CBS and had
revealed the truth about CassieBenal.
Lead investigator Kate Batanhad broken her silence and
spoken to one reporter, and thefirst passages from Eric's

(01:10:56):
journal had slipped out.
And yet the departmentmaintained its official silence.
It delayed the report again.
The victims' families werefurious.
The sheriff's department'scredibility plummeted.
Jeffco expressed shock andbewilderment at the
leaks.
Officials offered flimsyexcuses and insurances.

(01:11:19):
Weeks Officials offered flimsyexcuses and insurances.
A spokesman insisted that onlytwo copies of Eric's journal
existed, when in fact they hadbeen run through photocopiers
repeatedly and no one had a cluehow many copies were floating
around.
Then the undersheriff let atime reporter watch the basement
tapes.
He had assured the familiesrepeatedly they would be the

(01:11:42):
first to see thevideos.
The magazine ran an exposecover story shortly before
Christmas.
Stone and undersheriff Dunawayposted in their dress, blues
with white gloves, armed withthe killer's semi-automatics.
Many families were aghast.

(01:12:03):
Zebo called for Stone to resign.
Charges of cowardice againstthe SWAT teams resurfaced.
Prominent law enforcementofficials joined the chorus.
Stone insisted that hisdepartment would be accelerated
by the final report, which wasdelayed
again.
Turbulence was expected thatfall.

(01:12:24):
Everyone knew they would faceanniversaries and hearings.
No one foresaw the string ofaftershocks.
The school was sued over aKraft Project gun awry the
Robots charged infringement ofthe religious expression.
Rye the Rohrbogs chargedinfringement of the religious
expression.
Brian Rohrbog repeated thecrosses incident in a memorial

(01:12:44):
garden created at Cassie'schurch.
His group picketed Sundayservices and then chopped down
two of the 15 trees in front ofthe horrified youth group that
had planted them.
They inadvertently chose thetree symbolizing Cassie.
Bomb threats were a regularoccurrence, but one gained

(01:13:06):
traction.
To end the wake-up-the-timestory, the school was shut down
until after Christmas.
Finals were canceled.
Legal battles over the basementtapes
began.
Then the new year began and itgot worse.
A young boy was found dead in adumpster a few blocks from

(01:13:27):
Columbine High On Valentine'sDay.
Two students were shot dead ina subway shop two blocks from
the school.
The star of the basketball teamcommitted suicide.
Some events were unrelated tothe massacre or even the school.
But much of the community hadlost its ability to distinguish.

(01:13:51):
Perspective was impossible.
Kids were calling it theColumbine
curse.
Appointments at the mentalhealth facilities set up for
Columbine survivors rose sharplythrough the fall.
Utilization peaked about ninemonths after the tragedy and

(01:14:12):
held steady until a year and ahalf out.
At any given time during thatperiod, case managers were
following about 15 kids onsuicide watch.
Gradually each one came downfrom the brink but another took
that kid's place.
Substant abuse spiked.

(01:14:32):
The area experienced a markedincrease in traffic accidents
and DUIs.
Marked increase in trafficaccidents and
DUIs.
If we look at the definition ofPTSD, it can last between a
month, occurring any time aftera genuine trauma, and there is a

(01:15:04):
series of disabling responses,for example, recurring intrusive
recollections, emotionalnumbing and a constriction of
life activity, physiologicalshift in the fear threshold
affecting sleep concentrationand a sense of security.
Sleep concentration and a senseof security.
Response to PTSD can varydramatically.
Some people feel too much,others too little.

(01:15:26):
The over-feelers often sufferflashbacks.
Nothing can drive away theirterror.
They awake each morning knowingit may be April 20th or over
again.
They can go hours, weeks ormonths without an episode and
then a trigger, often a sight,sound or smell, and this will

(01:15:50):
take them right back.
It's not like a bad memory ofthe event.
It feels like it is the event.
It feels like it is the event.
Others protect themselves byshutting down altogether.
Pleasant feelings and joy geteliminated with the bad.
They often describe feelingnumb.

(01:16:11):
It was a rough year.
The football team offered arespite.
Matthew Ketter had been asophomore when he was killed in
the library.
He had played in the defensiveline in 1998 season and had
hoped to make varsity that fall.
At his parents' request, theteam dedicated the season to

(01:16:35):
Matt.
Each player wore Matt's numberon his helmet and Matt's
initials, mjk, on his cap.
They finished the season 12-1.
They came from 17 behind in thefourth quarter to win the first
playoff game.
The players wept on the fieldand they chanted MJK, mjk wept

(01:16:58):
on the field and they chantedMJK, mjk.
They were heavy underdogs forthe state championship.
Denver powerhouse.
Cherry Creek High had takenfive of the last 10
titles.
Columbine had made it to thebig game only once, a loss two
decades back.
Supporters flew in from aroundthe world.

(01:17:20):
8,000 people packed the stadium.
The media were everywhere.
The New York Times covered thegame.
The temperature dropped belowfreezing.
Patrick Ireland sat in thefront row trying to keep warm
Columbine first.

(01:17:41):
Chevy Creek went ahead early,but Columbine tied it up at the
half.
And then the defense came onstrong and they allowed just two
first downs in the second halfand the third touchdown put it
away and Columbine won 21-14.
Fans rushed the field.
The familiar chant thunderedthrough the stands we are

(01:18:05):
Columbine, we are Columbine.
The school held a victory rally.
A highlight reel of the gamewas projected, ending with a
picture of Matt, and it saidthis one's for you.
A moment of silence was heldfor all
13.
Some kids seem immune to thegloom, others fought private

(01:18:32):
battles on completely differentchronologies.
Patrick Ireland made steadyimprovements, kept his 4.0
average that fall and made surevaledictorian was still in sight
.
But a more significant problemloomed.
Patrick had had his life prettywell figured out junior year

(01:18:52):
Before he got shot.
He was going to be an architect.
His grandfather had been abuilder and Patrick had taken to
drawing.
In his junior high draftingclass he lined up that T-square
against the drafting table andhe could feel it.
He liked the precision.
He enjoyed the artistry.
At Columbine he worked withsophisticated computer-aided

(01:19:14):
design software.
When Eric and Dylan finalizedtheir plot, patrick was deep
into research on collegeprograms and had started
investigating internships.
He was still going to be anarchitect.
Patrick clung to the dreamstraight through outpatient
therapy.
He took breaks for threeout-of-state campus visits at

(01:19:38):
schools with leadingarchitecture programs.
They all accepted him, but theystress how rigorous the work
will be.
Architecture programs are knownfor their massive
workloads.
Five years of relentlessall-nighters All night was not
an option for Patrick.
He could cheat himself out of acouple hours of sleep, but his

(01:20:02):
brain would take years torecover.
He would slow his progress bytaxing it too hard and possibly
even bring on seizures.
In March he took a school tripto England.
The jet lag was tough.
His mother, kathy, went withhim and Friday night she noticed

(01:20:23):
his face went blank and hiseyeball fluttered for a few
seconds.
Kathy believed he was aprecursor to the event.
Two days later, patrick waswalking through London and
collapsed in the middle of astreet.
He shook violently, made italmost to the curb and called
out to a friend for help.

(01:20:44):
A London doctor prescribedanti-seizure medication.
The family confirmed thetreatment back home and Patrick
will be on it forlife.
Architecture school wasn'tgoing to work.
John and Kathy understood thatfrom the start, but they waited
for Patrick to accept thesituation.
He opted for Colorado State,just over an hour away.

(01:21:07):
He would try business schoolfor a year.
Csu had an architecture programtoo.
If a year later he felt hecould handle it, he could
transfer.
If a year later he felt hecould handle it, he could
transfer.
Despite this cloud over hisfuture, patrick regained his
bearing through the year.
Socially, he was having thetime of his

(01:21:33):
life.
Patrick had always been a catch.
He had been bright, charming,handsome and athletic and he had
been a little short onconfidence from time to time.
And Laura would have givenanything to go to the prom with
Patrick.
She might have become hisgirlfriend if he had asked, but

(01:21:57):
the shotgun blast had robbed himof some of his best assets.
But he was a star.
He was the most celebratedfigure to live through the
tragedy and he put up anincredible
fight.
Girls flirted unabashedly, butPatrick wanted Laura.

(01:22:19):
That first summer he told herhow much he wanted her, how
deeply and how long, and shesaid me too, with a relief.
Finally, after all, this timeit was out in the open.
And one thing happened, though.

(01:22:43):
Laura confessed everything, allthose nights, flirting on the
phone, hinting her heart out forhim to ask if only he had asked
her to the prom.
And Patrick said okay, I likeyou, you like me, let's do
something aboutit.
And it was too late because shewas dating the prom dude.
But that didn't seem like anobstacle, because he asked do

(01:23:10):
you want to be with me?
Yes, then break up with him.
And she said she would do it.
He gave her time.
He asked again when are yougoing?
Would do it?
He gave her time.
He asked again when are yougoing to do it?
And she said it would be soon.
But nothing happened.
Girls were fighting for thechance to date him.

(01:23:32):
So he got tired of waiting andasked one out.
And then he asked another, oneand another, and he thought this
was fun.
Things grew strained with Laura.
They never went out.
They began avoiding each other.
It was like being in fourthgrade again.

(01:23:53):
Thank you for listening to themurder book.
Have a great day.